I LIBRARY Of^CONirRESS, 

^UNITEDISTATHS OF AMEIM 




ENGLISH LITERATURE 



NINETEENTH CENTURY: 



ON THE PLAN OF 



THE AUTHOR'S "COMPENDIUM OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, 
AND SUPPLEMENTARY TO IT. 



DESIGNED FOR 



AS WELL AS FOR 



BY 

CHAKLES DEXTEr'^CLEVELAND, LL.D. 



THOROUGHLY REVISED AND GREATLY ENLARGED. 

1867 ^: 

C. PUBLISHED BY>of •// ^s.'.^r*.\0^ 

J. A. BANCROFT & CO., 512 ARCH ST., PHILADELPHIA. 
J. W. SCHERMERIIORN & CO., NEW YORK. 

CYRUS G. COOKE, Boston. HENDRICKS & POTTER, St. Louis. 

SPEAKMAN & PROCTOR, Chicago. 
1867. 
V 



4^ 



^^■^:.^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
CHARLES DEXTER CLEVELAND, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylva 



SERIES OF COMPENDIUMS OF GENERAL LITERATURE 

CONSISTS OF 

Compendium of SnglisJi Z,ite7'attire. 762 pp., large 12mo. 

Comprising English Authors from the 14th to the 18th century inclusive. 

Ungtish Lileraiure of the J\''ineieenih Century. 800 pp., large 12mo. 

Comprising living English authors, and those who have died in the 19th century. 

Compendium of American Ziierature. 

Comprising American authors from the earliest period of American literature to 
the present time. 

Compendium of Ctassicat Xiterature. 

Consisting of choice extracts translated from the Greek and Latin Prose Writers 
and Poets, 



STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. 
PHILADELPHIA. 



PREFACE. 



The present edition of this work is such a thorough remodel- 
ling of the former editions, the alterations of scheme are so funda- 
mental and of detail so numerous, that it devolves upon me to 
state my reasons for changing, in these respects, a book with 
which the public had seemed satisfied for fourteen years, and of 
which there have been printed above twenty thousand copies. 
Such reasons are owing, mainly, to the progress and revolution 
of events, the changes in public opinion, and the shaping of lite- 
rary history, since 1852, — the date of the publication of the first 
edition. 

First : At the period named, a system of human slavery existed 
in our land, not only absorbing a large part of its practical 
energies, and spreading like a miasma through our entire social 
and political life, but poisoning the very centres of the nation's 
moral life, and giving bent to all its sentimental expressions ; for 
it seemed as if the newspaper press, the educational press, and 
the religious press, as well as hundreds of pulpits, had challenged 
each other in a shameless eagerness to deny or ignore the essen- 
tial rights of man. The principles not only of republican free- 
dom, but of vital Christianity, being thus threatened, my duty, 
in the preparation of my work, seemed to me very plain, — to do 

what I could, appropriately, in my humble way, to counteract 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

the pernicious influences thus undermining the moral sense of the 
nation, by showing to all, and especially to our youth, that the 
highest minds of England, her greatest poets, essayists, orators, 
and divines, had ceaselessly labored to contribute their best in- 
tellectual wealth to the cause of liberty and righteousness. I 
therefore gave considerable margin to those general sentiments 
of justice and philanthropy as connected with the " inalienable 
rights" of man, which, if applied to the condition of our own 
nation, would tend to arrest its impending decay. I acknow- 
ledge that some of the purely literary claims of my work were 
thus subordinated in the first editions, by the course then pur- 
sued, as they may be said to be in the present, — though in a 
much less degree, — by the record I have now felt bound to make 
of the apostasy of a few leading English minds, who, during our 
recent struggle for " Union and Liberty," falsified their former 
noble record as champions for the right, by throwing the w^eight 
of their influence on the side of the slaveholding rebels. If the 
trial of storm shook these men from faith in those great prin- 
ciples which they proclaimed clearly enough in the sunshine, 
justice can know but the single duty of exposing the weakness 
and making it stand as a warning ; and, though widely and bit- 
terly denounced for my former course, and censured as I may be 
in some quarters for my present, I am more than willing to let 
both the records stand, verily believing that the views thus 
advocated are applicable not only to the phases of a transient 
time, but are founded on the basis of eternal truth. 

But, thanks be to God! the moral necessity that thus con- 
strained me to the course I took in 1852 exists no longer in 
these days of 1866. Human slavery, with its awful catalogue of 
crimes, has been swept away. The little band that, through 
every calumny of speech and every villany of persecution, bore 



PREFACE. 5 

its testimony against the foulest wrong that can be perpetrated 
upon man, has swelled into a mighty host, and is now moulding 
the policy of the nation whose governmental and moral integrity 
it has equally saved. I have therefore felt at liberty to drop 
from this new edition of my book most of the protests against the 
barbaric past, and to give the room thus gained to excerpts of 
a more strictly literary character. 

The second marked change in my book results, of course, from 
the necessity of keeping abreast with the intellectual progress 
of the age, — the busiest-brained generation the world has ever 
known. During the last fourteen years, a large number of 
authors have emerged, from greater or less obscurity of reputa- 
tion, into assured prominence in their several departments of 
literature ; and one of my most delicate tasks has been to set 
forth in these pages a just record of such developments; and no 
effort has been spared to determine fairly, as far as I could, the 
comparative attitude, as well as the absolute literary status, of 
every prominent writer. That this has been, all along, a work 
of great and constant difficulty and embarrassment, I need hardly 
say ; that I shall secure a unanimous verdict in favor of my suc- 
cess upon this point, it would be idle to hope ; but of this I feel 
sure, that the most lenient criticism will be extended to me from 
those who have most widely viewed and critically examined this 
illimitable field. 

There is one new feature of the present edition which, I am 
confident, will be universally acceptable, — the "Supplementary 
Lists" of secondary authors, alphabetically arranged and ap- 
pended to each decade, with short notices of their chief works. 
They are classed as " secondary" only in a comparative sense ; 
for, though they are writers of greater or less acknowledged excel- 



6 PREFACE. 

lence in their particular paths, they have not yet won such gene- 
rally established repute as to justify my representing them in 
selections. Of course not one-fourth part of the possible illustrious 
roll is given ; but those names have been assigned a place which in 
the judgment of the author possessed some element of interest that 
would make them generally sought for. Of these supplementary 
writers there are in the first decade twenty-one ; in the second, 
nineteen ; in the third, twenty-five ; in the fourth, thirty ; in the 
fifth, forty-one; in the sixth, thirty-nine; in the seventh, one 
hundred and eighty-nine ; in all, three hundred and sixty- 
four, with here and there a gem from one of them ; while there 
are thirty new authors, with more extended biographical 
sketches and selections.^ 

But the chief embarrassment that attended me, from the 
beginning to the end of my labors, was not so much whom 
and what to insert, as whom and what to leave uninserted. 
The very difficult — I might almost say the impracticable — 
problem given for solution was, to present, in a volume of this 
size, a fair and adequately full view of the literary genius and 
products of the nineteenth century ; and no one can fully appre- 
ciate the perplexity attending such a task unless he has gained 
some experimental knowledge of it. Conflicting claims of rank, 
of value, and of influence, both of authors and of selections, were 
continually forced upon me ; and there was no court of ultimate 
appellate jurisdiction but my own taste and judgment: their 
decisions, therefore, however deficient, must be accepted. Often 

1 They are — Archibald Alison, Jr., Matthew Arnold, Anne Barnard, Horatius Bonar, 
Charlotte Bronte, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, James Anthony Froude, Thomas 
Guthrie, Henry Hallam, Arthur Helps, Douglas Jerrold, John Keats, Charles Kings- 
ley, James Sheridan Knowles, Austin Henry Layard, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Hugh 
Miller, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Adelaide Anne Procter, Frederick W. Robertson, 
Henry Rogers, John Ruskin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alexander Smith, Thomas Noon Tal- 
FOURD, Isaac Taylor, William Makepeace Thackeray, Richard Chenevix Trench, and 
Nicholas Wiseman. 



PREFACE. 7 

have I earnestly desired some higher and better authority on 
which to throw the responsibility ; but none appeared to my re- 
lief, and I was forced to rely upon what I hope has been some- 
what fitted for the expression of ripened opinion by long and ex- 
tended study in this chosen and beloved field. But, while I have 
given to my work the distinct impress of my own studies and 
convictions, I have subjoined extracts from the most eminent 
critics, — especially where I could find an able presentation of a 
view opposite to my own. 

As regards the arbitrary temporal division between the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, — which, notwithstanding 
some exceptions taken to it, I have still preserved, — I can only 
say that I see not how in a work of this kind it would be 
possible to draw any other line. Without doubt, the literary 
temper of the eighteenth century was projected for some distance 
into our own; but who can say with what author or in what 
year it ceased ? Some boundary line must be made ; and, since 
this book *does not profess to trace the infinitely subtle grada- 
tions by which one influence rose and another disappeared, it is 
compelled to take its stand upon some arbitrary point. Even 
general history has been reduced to this necessity, and, dis- 
regarding the relatedness and inner sequence of events, has 
assumed a certain chronological point of departure. I have 
assumed the same ; and the question has simply been with me, 
in all cases, — Did such or such an author die this side of 1800 ? 
— an affirmative answer always bringing him within my clas-si- 
■fication. 

In conclusion, I will only say that I can wish no greater favor 
shown to this edition than the former editions received ; and, 
having taken every pains to make it, not to please any particular 
clique or sect or party, but, in connection with a fair and full 



8 PREFACE. 

representation of the authors comprised in its period, to promote 

the cause of sound learning and education, in harmony with pure 

Christian morals, the best interests of humanity, and the cause 

of universal truth, I now commit it to the judgment of that 

intelligent public, to which a work of such a nature must always 

appeal. 

Charles Dexter Cleveland. 

Philadelphia, June 21, IS 67, 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

JOSEPH WARTON 17 

Ode to Liberty 18 

Ode to Content 20 

Pope as a Poet 20 

HUGH BLAIR 21 

Ou the Cultivation of Taste 23 

Delicacy and Correctness of Taste 24 

Preparation necessary for Old Age 25 

JAMES BEATTIE 25 

Love of Nature 27 

Opening Stanzas of The Minstrel 29 

The Poet's Childhood 30 

Morning 32 

The Humble Wish 32 

The Charms of Nature 33 

The Hermit 33 

WILLIAM PALEY 34 

The World was made with a BeneA'olent 

Design 36 

Prayer 38 

MUNGO PARK 39 

Kindness of a Woman to him 40 

The Moss in the Desert 42 

HENRY KIRKE WHITE 43 

Sonnet in his Sickness 45 

Sonnet to Consumption.. 45 

My Mother 45 

Ode to Disappointment 46 

To an Early Primrose 47 

The Star of Bethlehem 48 

CHARLOTTE SMITH 48 

To the Moon 49 

The Departure of the Nightingale 50 

The Happiness of Childhood 50 

The Cricket 50 

Supplementary authors of the First 

Decade 51 

MARY TIGHE 55 

Love must be cherished 55 

On receiving a Branch of Mezereon 57 



Paob 

RICHARD CUMBERLAND 58 

Progress of Poetry 59 

.^schylus and Shakspeare 61 

JAMES GRAHAME 63 

Sabbath Morning 6i 

A Summer Sabbath Walk 65 

The Poor Man's Funeral 66 

HERBERT KNOWLES 67 

Lines written in the Churchyard of 

Richmond 67 

JOHN WOLCOTT 68 

To James Boswell 69 

May-Day 70 

The Razor-Seller 70 

The Pilgrims and the Peas 71 

Supplementary Authors of the Second 

Decade 72 

THOMAS BROWN 76 

The Power of Habit 77 

The Changefulness of Woman 79 

JOHN KEATS 79 

Address to Autumn 80 

Ode to a Nightingale 81 

Permanence of Beauty 82 

Saturn and Thea 83 

VICESIMUS KNOX 85 

The Periodical Essayists 85 

On Simplicity of Style 88 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 89 

The Return of Spring 91 

Characteristics of Autumn 92 

A Calm Winter Night 92 

The Cloud 92 

The Eagle and Serpent 94 

The Skylark 95 

The Sensitive Plant 97 

CHARLES WOLFE 98 

Burial of Sir John Moore 99 

Song,— To Mary 100 



10 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
CHARLES WOLFE: 
Blindness of Milton 101 

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD 102 

Milking 103 

The Skylark 104 

The Blind Child 104 

The Distracted Female 105 

THOMAS ERSKINE 106 

Principles of the Law of Libel 108 

Christians the Ornaments of our Race... 109 

JANE TAYLOR Ill 

The Philosopher's Scales 112 

Life 114 

The Present Moment only Ours 114 

GEORGE GORDON BYRON 115 

The Dying Gladiator 117 

Apostrophe to the Ocean 118 

Farewell 118 

Night at Corinth 119 

A Calm Night at Lake Geneva 119 

An Alpine Storm at Lake Geneva 120 

Liberty 120 

Modern Gi-eece 121 

Solitude 122 

Destruction of Sennacherib 123 

The East 123 

The Eve of the Battle 124 

The Coliseum by Moonlight.. 125 

Thermopylas 126 

A Shipwreck 126 

She walks in Beauty 127 

Man's Immortality 128 

To the Memory of Henry Kirke White... 128 

ANNA L^TITIA BARBAULD 129 

On Education 130 

Against Inconsistency in Expectations.. 133 

Ye are the Salt of the Earth 136 

Her Sacred Lyrics 137 

ANNE BARNARD 137 

Auld Robin Gray 137 

REGINALD HEBER 138 

Nations responsible to God 140 

Palestine 141 

The Israelites delivered 141 

To his Wife 142 

On the Death of his Brother 143 

Epiphany 143 

ROBERT POLLOK 144 

Happiness 145 

The Miser 145 



Paob 
ROBERT POLLOK: 

Friends 146 

An Autumn Evening 146 

JONATHAN DYMOND 148 

Love the Test of Christian Principle.... 149 

Human subordinate to Divine Law 149 

Slavery 150 

HUMPHRY DAVY 152 

Pleasures of Fishing 152 

Blessings of Religious Faith 153 

The Tempest 154 

Supplementary Authors of the Third 
Decade 155 

WILLIAM HAZLITT 1.58 

Literature of the Age of Elizabeth 159 

Macbeth and Richard Third 162 

ROBERT HALL 164 

Homer and Milton 166 

A Patriot's Duty to his Country 167 

The Bible 169 

HENRY MACKENZIE 170 

The Homespun Family 171 

WALTER SCOTT 175 

Death of Lord Marmion 179 

Love of Country, — Scotland 182 

Rebecca's Hymn 183 

Paternal Affection 184 

An Hour with Thee 184 

Necessity and Dignity of Labor 185 

Education of the Heart 185 

Raleigh's Interview with Elizabeth 186 

The Young Fisherman's Funeral 190 

GEORGE CRABBE 192 

The Parish Workhouse 194 

Tlie Almshouse Physician 195 

Hardships of the Poor , 195 

A Betrothed Pair in Humble Life 196 

JAMES MACKINTOSH 198 

Johnson's Lives of the Poets 199 

Rebellion 201 

The Progressiveness of the Race 201 

Blessings of a Free Press 202 

HANNAH MORE 203 

Quakers, — their Faith and Works 205 

Wisdom 206 

The Two Weavers 206 

Proper Education for Females 207 

Qualities preferable to Genius 209 



CONTENTS. 

Page 



11 



HANNAH MORE: 

God rules Nations . 



210 



WILLIAM WILBERFORCE 212 

Abolition of the Slave-Trade 213 

The Hope for one's Country 215 

Supports of Religion 215 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 216 

Hymn in the Vale of Chamoiini 219 

Qualities essential to the Teacher 221 

To an Infant 221 

Youth and Age 222 

Reflections on leaving Retirement 223 

Importance of the Correct Use of Terms 223 

Qualities necessary for a Good Style 224 

Advantages of Method 225 

Truth will prevail 226 

Duty 228 

Hypocritical Example 228 

Books of Moses 229 

Milton 229 

Effects of Novel-Reading 230 

EDWARD IRYING 230 

Character of David 231 

CHARLES LAMB^. 235 

The Housekeeper\. 237 

On the Family Nam\, 238 

The Sabbath Bells.... !^\.. 238 

To his Mother .\. 238 

Shakspeare cannot be acted 239 

Quakers,— Oaths 240 

Cowper 242 

Libraries 242 

The Two Races of Men 242 

Filial Affection 245 

JAMES HOGG 246 

Kilmeny's Return from Fairy-Land 247 

Queen Mary's Return to Scotland 248 

The Skylark 249 

Yirtue 249 

Music 250 

Blessed be Thy Name forever 250 

FELICIA HEMANS 250 

The Hebrew Mother 252 

The Stranger's Heart 254 

The Hour of Death 254 

The Hour of Prayer 255 

Bring Flowers 255 

Evening Prayer at a Girls' School 256 

Sunday Sonnet 257 

NATHAN DRAKE 257 

Character of Addison's Writings 258 



NATHAN DRAKE: 

Character of Dr. Johnson 260 

SIR EGERTON BRYDGES 264 

Sir Walter Raleigh 265 

John Milton 268 

Echo and Silence 270 

ARCHIBALD ALISON 271 

Pleasure of acquiring Knowledge 271 

Use and Abuse of Amusements 273 

L^TITIA ELIZABETH MACLEAN 274 

Success alone Seen 276 

The Widow's Mite 276 

Time arresting the Career of Pleasure... 277 

The Wrongs of Love 277 

Love's Last Words 278 

The Poet 278 

THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY 278 

Verses to his Wife 279 

I never was a Favorite 280 

My Married Daughter 281 

Why don't the Men pronose ? . 



WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED 283 

My Mother's Grave 283 

A Windlass , 284 

A Footpad 284 

A Great Poet 285 y.i 

To Helen 2^ 

Fuimus 286 

The Sabbath 286 

JAMES SMITH 287 

The Baby's Debut 288 

The Theatre 290 

The Upas-Tree 291 

Blue Ink 291 

Masculine and Feminine 292 

The Shower-Bath 292 

Westminster Bridge 292 

Supplementary Authoks of the Fourth 
Decade 292 

LANT CARPENTER 297 

Regulation of the Sensible Pleasures 297 

THOMAS ARNOLD 301 

From his Journal 303 

Dominion of Napoleon 303 

The Siege of Genoa 305 

Encouragements of the Schoolmaster.... 306 

True Gospel Preaching 307 

Intercourse with the Poor 307 

Popish and Oxford View of Christianity 308 



12 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
THOMAS ARNOLD: 

Liveliness essential to a Teacher 309 

Old English Divines 309 

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM 310 

Influence of Scotland and her Songs 310 

The Town and Country Child 312 

The Poet^s Bridal Song 313 

A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea 314 

ROBERT SOUTHEY 315 

Battle of Blenheim 316 

Immortalitj' of Love 318 

To a Spider 318 

Complaints of the Poor 319 

The Scholar 320 

For a Monument at Oxford 321 

The Old Man's Comforts 321 

The March to Moscow 322 

True Mission of England 325 

Death of Lord Nelson 325 

Etymological Discoveries 328 

Chief Object of Life 329 

JOHN FOSTER 329 

Changes from Youth to Age 330 

Decision of Character 331 

Character of Franklin 332 

Where will you leave your Glory? 333 

THOMAS CAMPBELL 334 

Mother and her Child 336 

Advancement of Society 337 

Man made to be Free 337 

Hope beyond the Grave 338 

Wyoming — Gertrude 339 

The Soldier's Dream 341 

The River of Life 341 

Ilohenlinden 342 

Ye Mariners of England 343 

THOMAS HOOD 344 

Ode to my Infant Son 344 

Song of the Shirt 346 

The Death-Bed 347 

The Lady's Dream 348 

The Bridge of Sighs 350 

Sally Simpkins's Lament •. 351 

The Art of Book-Keeping 352 

SYDNEY SMITH .4 354 

Foundation of the Edinburgh Review... 354 

Modern Sermons 357 

Female Education 357 

Cost of Militai-y Glory 360 

The Curse of War 361 

A Soporific Sermon 362 

Stage-Coach Travelling 363 



Pass 
SYDNEY SMITH: 

Dress and Beauty 363 

Blue Stockings 364 

Dogs 364 

Conspiracy of the Pope 364 

The French Invasion 365 

Fireplaces 366 

Anti-Melancholy 366 

The Passions 366 

American Freedom.....' 367 

Progress of Reform 367 

Witty Sayings 368 

THOMAS CHALMERS 369 

Insignificance of the World 370 

Telescope and Microscope 372 

Barbarities of War 373 

Sympathy of Christ 374 

Affliction 375 

HARTLEY COLERIDGE 375 

Night 376 

A Vision 376 

Prayer 377 

Pins 377 

Hamlet— Ophelia .". 378 

BERNARD BARTON 379 

Spiritual Worship 380 

A Christian the Highest Style of Man... 381 

To a Friend on her Marriage 382 

Sonnet to his Wife 383 

To a Grandmother 383 

Friends of the Anti-Slavery Cause 384 

MARIA EDGEWORTH 384 

Love 385 

Irish Bulls 387 

Prudence 389 

Education of Females 390 

Economy 390 

Music as an Accomplishment 391 

HORACE SMITH 391 

A Tale of Drury Lane 391 

Doctor Johnson's Ghost 394 

Fine Brown Stout , 394 

Address to a Mummy 395 

EBENEZER ELLIOTT 397 

Poor Andrew 398 

The Home of Taste 399 

Pictures of Native Genius 400 

Saturday 401 

Rubor Rust 402 

Supplementary Authors of the Fifth 
Decade 402 



CONTENTS. 



la 



Pack 

FRANCIS JEFFREY 407 

Perishable Nature of a Poefs Fame 410 

Landscape Beauty 412 

Shakspeare 414 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 418 

Tintern Abbey 422 

To a Skylark : 424 

Portrait 425 

Ode to Duty 425 

We are Seven 426 

Our Immortality 428 

The World is too much with us 430 

Scorn not the Sonnet 430 

Milton 430 

To Thomas Clarkson 431 

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES 431 

Sonnet at Ostend 433 

Sonnet on the Rhine 433 

Sonnet to Time 433 

Sonnet to Summer 434 

Sonnet to Hope.... 434 

To his Early Beloved 434 

Lines on a Poor Blind Man 4.35 

The Bells of Ostend 435 

JOANNA BAILLIE 436 

Description of Jane de Montfort ;.. 437 

The Kitten 437 

Morning Song 439 

The Old Soldier 439 

Fame 440 

DAVID MACBETH MOIR 441 

Casa Wappy 442 

Weep not for Her 445 

Spring Hymn 446 

Hebrew Poetry 447 

Finest Poetry,— What 447 

Mystical Poetry 448 

THOMAS MOORE 448 

Moore and Genius Self-Painted 451 

Paradise and the Peri 451 

Is it not Sweet to Think Hereafter 454 

'Tis the Last Rose of Summer 455 

I saw thy Form 455 

Those Evening Bells 455 

Come, ye Disconsolate 456 

The Light of Other Days 456 

Like Morning when her Early Breeze ... 457 

The Bird let Loose 457 

This World is all a Fleeting Show 457 

Thou art, God, the Life 458 

FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON 458 

Things Worse than War 469 



Paqk 
FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON: 

Work our Duty 460 

Kindliness 461 

Charles Dickens 462 

AMELIA OPIE 463 

Forget me not 463 

There's not a Leaf within the Bower 464 

Lies of Benevolence 46i 

A Tale of Potted Sprats 465 

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD 467 

But One Homer 468 

Variety of Characters in the Iliad 469 

The Effect of Christianity on Poetry 470 

Sympathy 470 

JOHN WILSON 471 

The Head-Stone 472 

A Morning Picture 476 

The Children's Dance 476 

Meditations on Spring 477 

A Night at Sea 477 

To the Memory of Grahame 478 

The Evening Cloud 479 

CAROLINE ANNE SOUTHEY 479 

Mariner's Hymn 480 

Sanctified Afflictions 480 

The Young Grey-Head 481 

JAMES MONTGOMERY 483 

Love of Country and of Home 485 

Night 486 

Aspirations of Youth 487 

The Common Lot 488 

Friend after Friend Departs 489 

Humility , 489 

Superiority of Poetry over Painting 490 

Characteristics of Prose and Verse 491 

Permanence of Words 493 

THE BROTHERS HARE 495 

What Youth should Learn 495 

Physical and Moral Power 495 

A Christian Gentleman 497 

Despise not Small Things 497 

Coming of Age 498 

Mirth 498 

How we may inherit the Earth 600 

Cloud— Sunshine 600 

CHARLOTTE BRONTE .* 501 

Death of Emily and Anne Bronte 501 

Helen Burns 602 

SAMUEL ROGERS 606 

Early Recollections 508 



14 



CONTENTS. 



Page I 
SAMUEL ROGERS: 

Historic Associations 509 

Conclusion 511 

Human Life 511 

Ginevra 512 

A Wish 513 

HUGH MILLER 514 

Turning Point of his Life 514 

Pentecostal Gift 516 

Traces of the Ocean 516 

True Happiness of Working-Men 517 

Last Day of Creation 518 

THOMAS DICK 519 

Tendency of Knowledge 520 

Evil Tendency of Covetousness 522 

The Throne of God 523 

DOUGLAS JERROLD 524 

Repartees and Puns 525 

Mrs. Caudle's Lectures— Introduction... 526 

Lecture First 527 

Lecture Sixth 529 

Lecture Eighth 530 

Winter in London 531 

fiENRY HALLAM 532 

The Feudal System 533 

Magna Charta 533 

Houses, &c. of the Nohles in the Middle 
Ages 535 

LEIGH HUNT 537 

George the Fourth 537 

Epigram on the Georges 537 

The Author in Prison 538 

Funeral of the Loves of Rimini 540 

Dirge 540 

Flowers 541 

Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel 541 

Sultan Mahmoud 541 

The Poet's Mission 543 

THOMAS DE QUINCEY 544 

Meditative Poetry (note) 545 

Dream of the Opium-Eater 546 

Three Ladies of Sorrow 547 

Lord Rosse's Telescope 549 

Scripture Teachings 550; 

TH0MA9«»BABINGT0N MACAULAY 552 

Milton 554 

The Puritans 556 

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress 558 

Execution of Monmouth 560 

The Blessings of Liberty 561 

The Empire that is Lasting 563 



Pass 

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY: 

Influence of the Romish Church... 564 

Supplementary Authors of the Sixth 
Decade 565 

ANNA JAMESON 569 

Her Aims in Writing 569 

Portia 570 

GEORGE CROLY 576 

Progress of European Civilization 577 

Poetry 578 

Political Economy 578 

Metaphysics 579 

Purposes of Prayer 579 

Christianity 579 

The Jews 580 

Man (Poetry) 580 

Hymn to the Universe 581 

Energy 581 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.... 582 

Duties and Joys of Woman 583 

Portraits of the Poets 584 

Superiority of the Spiritual over the 

Material 585 

The Sleep 586 

Comfort ! 587 

Consolation 588 

Substitution 588 

Cowper's Grave 588 

JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES 590 

William Tell and his Son 690 

Emblems of Liberty in Nature 592 

RICHARD WHATELY 594 

Miracles 595 

A Primitive Bishop 596 

What is a Christian ? 598 

Science and Scripture 598 

Friendships in Heaven 599 

Consistency and Inconsistency 601 

Objections to Christianity 601 

Duty of Private Judgment 602 

IVILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 602 

Lady Clara Newcome 604 

Women,— the Bad,— the Good 605 

Last Days of George Third 607 

Loyalty to Truth 608 

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER 609 

One by One 610 

Life and Death 610 

Cradle Song of the Poor 6U 

I Words..... 612 



CONTENTS. 



15 



Page 

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 612 

Roger Ascham and Lady Jane Grey 613 

Queen Elizabeth and Cecil 616 

Profession versus Practice 617 

Ending of Paradise Lost 617 

Friendship 618 

Gambling 618 

Wisdom 618 

Sculpture, Painting, and Poetry 618 

Goodness 618 

Founders of Families 619 

NICHOLAS WISEMAN 619 

Different Languages as fit for Different 
Designs 619 

ISAAC TAYLOR 621 

Dangers of the Religion of the Imaginar 

tion 622 

John Wesley 623 

Founders of Methodism 624 

JOHN KEBLE 625 

Morning 626 

Evening 627 

The Dove on the Cross 627 

The Flowers of the Field 628 

Brotherly Love 629 

HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM 630 

Duke of Wellington and the School- 
master 632 

" Man over Men He made not Lord" 632 

Happy Effects of Education 633 

Aptitude of Youth for Knowledge 634 

The Schoolmaster and the Conqueror.... 635 

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER 636 

A Paupers Funeral 636 

A Petition to Time 637 

A Prayer in Sickness 637 

The Sea 637 

The Stormy Petrel 638 

The Sexes 639 

HENRY HART MILMAN 639 

Jerusalem before the Siege 640 

The Firmness of Faith 640 

A Hebrew Wedding 642 

The Burial Anthem 643 

ARCHIBALD ALISON 644 

Napoleon and Wellington 645 

The Railway Mania 647 

The Present Times 649 

THOMAS CARLYLE 650 

Ilias Americana (note) 651 



Faob 
THOMAS CARLYLE: 

Marie- Antoinette 652 

Work 654 

Personal Appearance of Cromwell 655 

Honest Study 656 

WILLIAM HOWITT 657 

Politics and Christianity 658 

The True Dignity of Labor 660 

ALARIC ALEXANDER WATTS 662 

Death of the First-Born 662 

To a Child Blowing Bubbles 663 

My Own Fireside 6^4 

THOMAS GUTHRIE 665 

Juvenile Ignorance and Misery 665 

MARY HOWITT 667 

The Sale of the Pet Lamb 668 

Mountain Children 669 

The Unregarded Toils of the Poor 670 

Father is Coming 670 

JOHN MOULTRIE 671 

My Brother's Grave 671 

Here's to Thee, my Scottish Lassie 673 

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON 674 

Death of Gawtrey, the Coiner 676 

Pompeii 677 

Conversion to Christianity 678 

The Olympic Festival 679 

HENRY ROGERS 680 

The Character of Christ 680 

SAMUEL WARREN 682 

Life 683 

Fruits of Christianity 683 

Death at the Toilet 683 

RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH 687 

Earth a Pilgrimage 687 

"The Path of the Just" 687 

Repining — Thanksgiving 688 

Prayer 688 

Self-Loathing 688 

Lost Opportunities 689 

The Best Interpreter of Scripture 689 

The Power of a Word 689 

The Beauty and Force of Proverbs 691 

HORATIUS BONAR 692 

The Two Prophets 693 

CAROLINE E. S. NORTON 694 

To the Duchess of Sutherland 695 



16 



CONTENTS. 



CAROLINE E. S. NORTON: 

Sonnet,— To my Books 

Sonnet,— The Weaver 

Common Blessings 

Hope, Despair 



RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES 698 

Youth and Manhood 698 

Labor 699 

Rich and Poor 700 

The Brook-Side 700 

The Worth of Hours 701 

ALFRED TENNYSON 701 

New-Year's Eve 703 

Break, Break, Break 704 

The Lord of Burleigh 704 

The Slain Warrior 705 

The Bugle Song 706 

In Memoriam 706 

Godiva 708 

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER 709 

Of Compensation 710 

Forgive and Forget 711 

ARTHUR HELPS 712 

Contentment 713 

Our Pleasures 713 

Art of Living with Others 713 

Advantages of Foreign Travel 714 

ROBERT BROWNING 715 

Paracelsus on his Death-Bed 716 

CHARLES DICKENS 718 

Death of Paul Doiiibey 720 

Pickwick and the Cab-Driver 722 

Tim Linkinwater's Window 724 

The Death of Little Nell 726 

Yirtues of the Poor 729 

CHARLES MACKAY 730 

The Good Time Coming 731 

The Watcher on the Tower 731 



Pagb 
CHARLES MACKAY: 

The Three Preachers 732 

JOHN RUSKIN 733 

Tyre, Venice, and England 734 

Truth 735 

God's Rewards, Great Rewards 735 

The Fields 735 

The Sky 737 

The Term "Gentleman" 738 

AUSTIN HENRY LAYARD 739 

The Great Lions at Nimroud 739 

ELIZA COOK 742 

The Old Arm-Chair 742 

The World 743 

Home in the Heart 744 

Nature's Gentleman 744 

The Loved One was not There 745 

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 745 

Character of Henry VIII 746 

Execution of Sir Thomas More 748 

ALEXANDER SMITH 749 

The Library— The Garden 750 

CHARLES KINGSLEY 752 

Words versus Works 752 

Science not the Greatest 753 

The Poets of the Eighteenth and Nine- 
teenth Centuries 753 

The World's Age 754 

A Farewell 755 

MATTHEW ARNOLD 755 

Homer's Translators 755 

Homer and Milton 756 

Desire 758 

Supplementary Authors of the Seventh 
Decade 759 

Index 785 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



NINETEENTH CENTURY, 



JOSEPH WART ON, 1722-1800. 

In entering upon the subject of English literature of the present century, it 
is gratifying to begin with the name of one who, to the character of a pleasing 
poet, a profound scholar, a tasteful and judicious critic, and a successful and 
venerated schoolmaster, unites that of a pure Christian, in so eminent a degree 
as Joseph Warton. He was the son of the Rev. Thomas Warton, Professor of 
Poetry in Oxford University, and was born at Dunsfold, county of Surrey, April, 
1722. When fourteen, he entered Winchester school, and, while there, so dis- 
tinguished himself for his poetical talents that he became a contributor to the 
poetry of the Gentleman's Magazine.^ In 1740 he removed to Oxford University, 
and in 1744 he took his degree of A.B., was immediately ordained, and officiated 
as his father's curate in the church of Basingstoke, in Hampshire, till February, 
1746. In this year he published a small volume of Odes on Various Subjects, 
which are characterized by a fine taste and fancy, and much ease of versifi- 
cation.2 The year after the publication of this volume of odes, he obtained the 
rectory of Wynslade, and thereupon married a Miss Daman, to whom he had 
been long engaged. He now devoted all his leisure hours to the translation 
of Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, which were to be accompanied by Pitfs 
version of the ^neid, and the original Latin of the whole. In 1753 this ele- 
gant and valuable accession to classical literature was completed and pub- 
lished, accompanied by notes, dissertations, commentaries, and essays. The 
work was well received, and Warton's version of the Georgics and Eclogues 
was pronounced far superior to any that had preceded it. 

It was at this time that Dr. Johnson, in a letter dated March 8, 1753, applied 
to him, from Hawkesworth, to assist in the Adventurer. " Being desired," says 
he, '' to look out for another hand, my thoughts necessarily fixed upon you. 



1 His first contribution was in October, 1739, 
and may be found in vol. ix. p. 545. In the 
Bame month appeared, in this magazine, Aken- 
side's Hymn to Science; in the next page, a 
juvenile sonnet by Collins, signed Delicatulus ; 
and in the next month, p. 599, is Mrs. Carter's 
beautiful Ode to Melancholy. So much has this 



periodical done to usher the first productions 
of genius into the world ! 

2 Read a well-written biographical sketch of 
Warton, in Drake's Essays, vol. v. p. 112; and 
another in Sir Egerton Brydges's Censura Lite^ 
raria, vol. iv. p. §40, of the 2d edition. 



2* 



17 



18 



WARTON. 



whose fund of literature will enable you to assist them, with very little interrup- 
tion of your studies, &c. : the province of criticism and literature they are very 
desirous to assign to the commentator on Virgil."^ His first paper is No. 49, 
dated April 24, 1753, containing a Parallel between Ancient and Modern Learn- 
ing. His communications are among the very best of the whole work, and are 
written " with an extent of erudition, and a purity, elegance, and vigor of lan- 
guage, which demand very high praise."^ 

In the year 1755, Warton was chosen second master of Winchester school, for 
which high office he was peculiarly qualified by his talents and character, as 
he united to his great learning a peculiar aptness to impart instruction, and the 
rare art of exciting in his scholars an enthusiasm for literature and a love and 
respect for himself. The next year he published the first volume of his Essay 
on the Genius and Writings of Pope, which must ever be ranked as one of the 
most elegant and interesting productions in the department of criticism. " It 
abounds," says Dr. Drake, " with literary anecdote and collateral disquisition, 
is written in a style of great ease and purity, and exhibits a taste refined, 
chaste, and classical. In short, it is a work which, however often perused, 
affords fresh delight, and may be considered as one of the books best adapted to 
excite a love of literature." 

In 1766 he succeeded to the head-mastership of Winchester school, which he 
held till 1793, when, being seventy-one years old, he resigned this position, and 
retired to the Rectory of Wickham, in Hants. He did not, however, sink into 
literary idleness. In 1797 he edited the works of Pope, in nine volumes, octavo. 
The notes to this edition, which necessarily include the greatest part of his cele- 
brated Essay, are highly entertaining and instructive.^ But he was censured 
for introducing some pieces of Pope's which Warburton had very properly 
omitted. Still, he was not deterred by the blame he thus suffered from entering 
upon an edition of Dryden, which, alas! he did not live to finish, though he 
left two volumes ready for the press. He died February 23, 1800, leaving behind 
him a widow, one son (the Rev. John Warton), and three daughters. Such is 
a brief outline of the life of this most excellent man, — one of the ripest 
scholars and soundest critics England has produced. 

ODE TO LIBERTY. 

O Goddess, on whose steps attend 

Pleasure, and laughter-loving Health, 
White-mantled Peace with olive-wand, 

Young Joy, and diamond-scepter' d Wealth, 
Blithe Plenty, with her loaded liorn, 
With Science bright-ey'd as the morn; 
In Britain, which for ages past 

Has been thy choicest darling care, 

Who madest her wise, and strong, and fair, 
May thy best blessings ever last ! 



1 See the whole letter in Croker's Boswell, 
vol. i. 302. 

2 Sir Egerton Brydges. Of the 140 numbers 
of the Adventurer, Hawkesworth*, wrote 73, 



Johnson 29, Warton 24, Bathnrst 7, Mrs. Cha- 
pone 3, Coleman 1, and 3 are anonymous. 

3 Roscoe has incorporated most of Warton'8 
notes in his — now the best — edition of Pope, 8 
vols. 8vo. 



* For an account of Hawkesworth, se9 CtTfiPPn^iurn of English Literature, p. 609. 



WARTOK 19 

For thee, the pining prisoner mourns, 

Depriv'd of food, of mirth, of light ; 
For thee pale slaves to galleys chain'd, 

That ply tough oars from morn to night ; 
Thee the proud Sultan's beauteous train, 
By eunuchs guarded, weep in vain, 

Tearing the roses from their locks ; 
And Guinea's captive kings lament, 
By Christian lords to labor sent, 

Whipt like the dull, unfeeling ox. 

Inspir'd by thee, deaf to fond Nature's cries, 

Stem Brutus, when Kome's genius loudly spoke, 
Gave her the matchless filial sacrifice. 

Nor turn'd, nor trembled at the deathful stroke! 
And he of later age, but equal fame. 

Dared stab the tyrant, though he loved the friend. 
How burnt the Spartan^ with warm patriot flame, 

In thy great cause his valorous life to end ! 
How burst Gustavus from the Swedish mine ! 
Like light from chaos dark, eternally to shine. 

When Heaven to all thy joys bestows, 

And graves upon our hearts — be free — 
Shall coward man those joys resign. 

And dare reverse this great decree? 
Submit him to some idol-king, _ 
Some selfish, passion-guided thing. 

Abhorring man, by man abhorr'd. 
Around whose throne stands trembling Doubt, 
Whose jealous eyes still roll about, 

And Murder with his reeking sword? 

Where trampling Tyranny with Fate 

And black Eevenge gigantic goes. 
Hark, how the dying infants shriek ! 

How hopeless age is sunk in woes ! 
Fly, mortals, from that fated land. 

Though birds in shades of cassia sing. 
Harvests and fruits spontaneous rise. 
No storms disturb the smiling skies, ^ 

And each soft breeze rich odors bring. 

Britannia, watch ! — remember peerless Kome, 

Her high-tower'd head dash'd meanly to the ground; 
Eemember, Freedom's guardian, Grecia's doom, 

Whom, weeping, the despotic Turk has bound : 
May ne'er thy oak-crown' d hills, rich meads, and downs 

(Fame, Virtue, Courage, Poverty, forgot,) 
Thy peaceful villages, and busy towns, 

Be doom'd some death-dispensing tyrant's lot; 
On deep foundations may thy freedom stand. 
Long as the surge shall lash thy sea-encircled land. 



1 Leonidas. 



20 WARTON. 

ODE TO CONTENT. 

Welcome Content ! from roofe of fretted gold, 
From Persian sofas, and the gems of Ind, 

From courts, and camps, and crowds, 

Fled to my cottage mean. 

Meek Virgin, wilt thou deign with me to sit 
In pensive pleasure by my glimmering fire, 

And with calm smile despise 

The loud world's distant din ? 

As from the piny mountain's topmost cliff 
Some wandering hermit sage hears unconcem'd, 

Far in the vale below, 

The thundering torrent burst I 

Teach me, good Heaven, the gilded chains of vice 
To break ; to study independent ease ; 

Pride, pomp, and power to shun, — 

Those fatal Sirens fair, 

That, rob'd like Eastern queens, sit on high thrones, 
And, beckoning every thirsty traveller, ^ 

Their baleful cups present 

With pleasing poisons fraught. 

O let me dwell in life's low valley, blest 

With the dear Nymph I love, true, heartfelt joy, 

With chosen friends to turn 

The polish' d Attic page; 

Nor seldom, if nor Fortune damp my wings, 
Nor dire Disease, to soar to Pindus' hill, 

My hours, my soul devote 

To Poesy and Love ! 

POPE AS A POET. 

Thus have I endeavored to give a critical account, with free- 
dom, but, it is hoped, with impartiality, of each of Pope's works ; 
by which review it will appear that the largest portion of them 
is of the didactic, moral, and satiric kind ; and, consequently, not 
of the. most poetic species of poetry; whence it is manifest that 
good sense and judgment were his characteristical excellencies, 
rather than fancy and invention ; riot that the author of the 
Rape of the Loch, and Eloisa, can be thought to want imagina- 
tion, but because his imagination was not his predominant talent ; 
because he indulged it not ; and because he gave not so many 
proofs of this talent as of the other. He gradually became one 
of the most correct, even, and exact poets that ever wrote ; polish- 
ing his pieces with a care and assiduity that no business or avoca- 
tion ever interrupted : so that, if he does not frequently ravish 
and transport his reader, yet he does not disgust him with un- 
expected inequalities and absurd improprieties. Whatever poeti- 
cal enthusiasm he actually possessed, he withheld and stifled. 



BLAIR. 21 

The perusal of him affects not our minds with such strong emo- 
tions as we feel from Homer and Milton, so that no man of a 
true poetical spirit is master of himself while he reads them. 
Hence, he is a writer fit for universal perusal ; adapted to all 
ages and stations ; for the old and for the young ; the man of 
business and the scholar. He who would think the Faerie Queenej 
Palamon and Arcite, the Tempest, or Comus, childish and romantic, 
might relish Pope. Surely it is no narrow and niggardly enco- 
mium to say he is the great Poet of Reason, the First of Ethical 
authors in verse. And this species of writing is, after all, the 
surest road to an extensive reputation. It lies more level to the 
general capacities of men than the higher flights of more genuine 
poetry. We all remember when even a Churchill was more in 
vogue than a Gray. He that treats of fashionable follies and 
the topics of the day, that describes present persons and recent 
events, finds many readers whose understandings and whose pas- 
sions he gratifies. 

Where, then, according to the question proposed at the begin- 
ning of this Essay, shall we with justice be authorized to place 
our admired Pope? Not, assuredly, in the same rank with 
Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton; however justly we may applaud 
the Eloisa and Rape of the Lock. But, considering the correct- 
ness, elegance, and utility of his works, the weight of sentiment, 
and the knowledge of man they contain, we may venture to assign 
him a place next to Milton, and just above Dryden. Yet, to bring 
our minds steadily to make this decision, we must forget for a 
moment the divine Music Ode of Dryden, and may perhaps then 
be compelled to confess that, though Dryden be the greater genius, 
yet Pope is the better artist. 

The preference here given to Pope above other modern Eng- 
lish poets, it must be remembered, is founded on the excellencies 
of his works in general, and taken all together ; for there are parts 
and passages in other modern authors — in Young and in Thom- 
son, for instance — equal to any of Pope ; and he has written 
nothing in a strain so truly sublime as the Bard of Gray, 



HUGH BLAIR, 1718-1800. 

Dr. Hugh Blair was born in Edinburgh, in 1718. After having gone through 
the usual grammatical course at the High School, he entered the University 
of Edinburgh in 1730, where he spent eleven years in the study of literature, 
philosophy, and divinity. In 1739 he received the degree of A.M.; and in 
1741 he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Edinburgh. In the fol- 
lowing year he was settled in the parish of Colessie, in Fifeshire, but was not 
permitted to remain long in this rural retreat; for, a vacancy occurring in the 



22 



BLAIR. 



Canongate Church, in Edinburgh, he was elected its minister. In this station 
Dr. Blair remained eleven years, discharging with great fidelity the various 
duties of the pastoral office, and attracting general admiration for the chaste 
eloquence of his pulpit discourses. 

In 1754 he was transferred from the Canongate to Lady Tester's Church, and 
in 1758 was promoted to the High Cliurch of Edinburgh, — the most important 
ecclesiastical charge in the kingdom. Hitherto his attention was devoted 
almost exclusively to the attainment of eminence in his own profession; but 
in 1759 he delivered a course of Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres with 
such success that the University instituted a rhetorical class under his direc- 
tion, and the king founded a professorship, to the chair of which Dr. Blair was 
appointed. In 1763 he published a Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, which, 
though much overrated, evinced critical taste and learning.i In 1777 appeared 
the first volume of his sermons, which were received with great favor and had 
a very extensive circulation. In 1783 he resigned his professorship, and pub- 
lished his celebrated Lectures on Rhetoric, which have been a text-book in 
most of our colleges for half a century. The latter years of his life he spent in 
literary leisure, giving to the public three more volumes of sermons, and in the 
summer of 1800 began to prepare an additional volume; but he did not live to 
complete it, — his death occurring December 27 of that year. He had married 
in 1748 his cousin. Miss Bannatine, by whom he had a son and a daughter; 
but he survived them all. 

Although the sermons of Dr. Blair have not the popularity they once en- 
joyed, they are still very pleasing compositions of the kind: but they are rather 
didactic treatises than sermons. They are written with great taste and ele- 
gance, and, by inculcating Christian morality, without any allusion to contro- 
versial topics, are suited to all classes of Christians.^ But it is by his Lectures 
on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres that Dr. Blair is now chiefly known ; and they 
are deservedly popular. Though not equal to Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric 
in depth of thought or in ingenious original research, they are written in a 
pleasing style, convey a large amount of valuable information, suggest many 
very useful hints, and contain an accurate analysis of the principles of lite- 
rary composition in almost every species of writing, and an able digest of the 
rules of eloquence as adapted to the pulpit, the bar, or to popular assemblies. 
In short, they form an admirable system of rules for forming the style and 
cultivating the taste of youth; arid the time will be far distant, if it ever 
arrives, when they shall cease to be a text-book in every well-devised course 
of study for a liberal education. 



1 The question as to the genuineness of Os- 
sian, or, rather, of the poems which Mac- 
pherson attributed to that traditionary per- 
sonage, has been placed in its true light b}' 
Sir James Mackintosh {History of England, 
vol. i. 86, 87), who remarks, however, that " no 
other imposture in literary history approaches 
them in the splendor of their course."- But 
the searching investigations and keen analysis 
of Mr. Laing, in his History of Scotland, had, 
befdie Sir .Tames wrote, stripped these poems 
of all tiioir pretensions to genuineness. 



2 Dining with a select company at Mrs. Gar- 
rick's, Dr. Johnson said, " I love Blair's Ser- 
mons, though the dog is a Scotchman, and a 
Presbyterian, and every thing he should not 
be. I was the first to praise them. Such was 
my candor" (smiling). Mrs. Boscawen. — " Such 
his great merit, to get the better of all your 
prejudices." Johnson. — " Why, madam, let us 
compound the matter: let us ascribe it to my 
candor and his merit." — Croker's Boswdl, 



BLAIR. 23 



ON THE CULTIVATION OF TASTE. 

Belles-lettres and criticism chiefly consider man as a being 
endowed with those powers of taste and imagination which were 
intended to embellish his mind and to supply him with rational 
and useful entertainment. They open a field of investigation 
peculiar to themselves. All that relates to beauty, harmony, 
grandeur, and elegance ; all that can soothe the mind, gratify 
the fancy, or move the affections, belongs to their province. 
They present human nature under a different asjftct from that 
which it assumes when viewed by other sciences. They bring to 
light various springs of action, which without their aid might 
have passed unobserved, and which, though of a delicate nature, 
frequently exert a powerful influence on several departments of 
human life. 

Such studies have also this peculiar advantage, that they exer- 
cise our reason without fatiguing it. They lead to inquiries 
acute, but not painful ; . profound, but not dry nor abstruse. 
They strew flowers in the path of science ; and, while they keep 
the mind bent in some degree, and active, they relieve it at the 
same time from that more toilsome labor to which it must sub- 
mit in the acquisition of necessary erudition or the investigation 
of abstract truth. 

The cultivation of taste is further recommended by the happy 
effects which it naturally tends to produce on human life. The 
most busy man, in the most active sphere, cannot be always occu- 
pied by business. Men of serious professions cannot always be 
on the stretch of serious thought. Neither can the most gay and 
flourishing situations of fortune afford any man the power of fill- 
ing all his hours with pleasure. Life must always languish in 
the hands of the idle. It will frequently languish even in the 
hands of the busy, if they have not some employments subsidiary 
to that which forms their main pursuit. How, then, shall these 
vacant spaces, those unemployed intervals, which more or less 
occur in the life of every one, be filled up ? How can we contrive 
to dispose of them in any way that shall be more agreeable in 
itself, or more consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than 
in the entertainments of taste, and the study of polite literature ? 
He who is so happy as to have acquired a relish for these has 
always at hand an innocent and irreproachable amusement for 
his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a perni- 
cious passion. He is not in hazard of being a burden to himself 
He is not obliged to fly to low company, or to court the riot of 
loose pleasures, in order to cure the tediousness of existence. 

Providence seems plainly to have pointed out this useful purpose 
to which the pleasures of taste may be applied, by interposing 
them in a middle station between the pleasures of sense and those 



24 BLAIR. 

of pure intellect. We were not designed to grovel always among 
objects so low as the former, nor are we capable of dwelling con- 
stantly in so high a region as the latter. The pleasures of taste 
refresh the mind after the toils of the intellect and the labors of 
abstract study; and they gradually raise it above the attach- 
ments of sense, and prepare it for the enjoyments of virtue. 

So consonant is this to experience, that, in the education of 
youth, no object has in every age appeared more important to wise 
men than to tincture them early with a relish for the entertain- 
ments of tastef The transition is commonly made with ease from 
these to the discharge of the higher and more important duties 
of life. Good hopes may be entertained of those whose minds 
have this liberal and elegant turn. It is favorable to many vir- 
tues. Whereas to be entirely devoid of relish for eloquence, 
poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly construed to be an unpro- 
mising symptom of youth, and raises suspicions of their being 
prone to low gratifications, or destined to drudge in the more 
vulgar and illiberal pursuits of life. 

DELICACY AND CORRECTNESS OF TASTE. 

The characters of taste, when brought to its most improved state, 
are all reducible to tAVO, — Delicacy and Correctness. 

Delicacy of taste respects principally the perfection of that 
natural sensibility on which taste is founded.. It implies those 
finer organs or powers which enable us to discover beauties that 
lie hid from a vulgar eye. One may have strong sensibility, and 
yet be deficient in delicate taste. He may be deeply impressed 
by such beauties as he perceives ; but he perceives only what is in 
some degree coarse, what is bold and palpable; while chaster and 
simpler ornaments escape his notice. In this state taste generally 
exists among rude and unrefined nations. But a person of delicate 
taste both feels strongly and feels accurately. He sees distinctions 
and differences where others see none ; the most latent beauty does 
not escape him, and he is sensible of the smallest blemish. Delicacy 
of taste is judged of by the same marks that we use in judging of 
the delicacy of an external sense. As the goodness of the palate is 
not tried by strong flavors, but by a mixture of ingredients, where, 
notwithstanding the confusion, we remain sensible of each ; in like 
manner delicacy of internal taste appears by a quick and lively 
sensibility to its finest, most compounded, or most latent objects. 

Correctness of taste respects chiefly the improvement which that 
faculty receives through its connection with the understanding. A 
man of correct taste is one who is never imposed on by counterfeit 
beauties ; who carries always in his mind that standard of good 
sense which he employs in judging of every thing. He estimates 
with propriety the comparative merit of the several beauties which 
he meets with in any work of genius ; refers them to their proper 



BEATTIE. 25 

classes ; assigns the principles, as far as they can be traced, whence 
their power of pleasing flows ; and is pleased himself precisely in 
that degree in which he ought, and no more. 

It is true that these two qualities of taste, delicacy and correct- 
ness, mutually imply each other. No taste can be exquisitely 
delicate without being correct, nor can be thoroughly correct 
without being delicate. But still a predominancy of one or other 
quality in the mixture is often visible. The power of delicacy is 
chiefly seen in discerning the true merit of a work ; the power of 
correctness, in rejecting false pretensions to merit. Delicacy leans 
more to feeling ; correctness, more to reason and judgment. The 
former is more the gift of nature ; the latter, more the product of 
culture and art. Among the ancient critics, Longinus possessed 
most delicacy ; Aristotle, most correctness. Among the moderns, 
Mr. Addison is a high example of delicate taste ; Dean Swift, had 
he written on the subject of criticism, would perhaps have afforded 
the example of a correct one. 

PREPARATION NECESSARY FOR OLD AGE. 

A joyless and dreary season will old age prove, if Ave arrive at it 
with an unimproved or corrupted mind. For this period, as for 
every thing, certain preparation is necessary ; and that prepara- 
tion consists in the acquisition of knowledge, friends, and virtue. 
Then is the time when a man would especially wish to find him- 
self surrounded by those who love and respect him, — who will 
bear with his infirmities, relieve him of his labors, and cheer him 
with their society. Let him, therefore, now in the summer of his 
days, while yet active and flourishing, by acts of seasonable kind- 
ness and benevolence, insure that love, and, by upright and honor- 
able conduct, lay the foundation for that respect which in old age 
he would wish to enjoy. In the last place, let him consider a good 
conscience, peace with God, and the hope of heaven, as the most 
effectual consolations he can possess when the evil days shall come. 



JA3IES BEATTIE, 17S5-180S. 

" We drew our childhood's first poetic pleasures from ' Beattie's Minstrel.' " — Mrs. Browning. 

James Beattie, a much admired poet and a distinguished moral philosopher, 
was born in Lawrence Kirk, Kincardineshire, in the northeast of Scotland, on 
the 20th of October, 1735. His father, who was poor, died when the poet was 
only ten years old; but his elder brother kept him at school till he obtained a 
"bursary" (a kind of benefaction for poor scholars) at the Marischal College, 
Aberdeen, where he remained four years. Having received his degree of A.M. 
in 1753, he took a small school at Fordoun, near his native village. Here he 
employed his time chiefly in studying the classics, and in composing various 

3 



26 



BEATTIE. 



small poetical pieces, which appeared from time to time in the Scot's Magazine, 
and drew him more and more into notice, until, in 1758, he was appointed 
usher in the grammar-school at Aberdeen, and in two years after he was 
elected Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in the Marischal College. He 
immediately prepared a course of lectures for the students, and in 1761 pub- 
lished a small volume of poems, consisting chiefly of those which had already 
appeared anonymously in the Scots Magazine. In 1765 he published his poem 
The Judgment of Paris, which has but little merit. 

In June, 1767, he married Miss Mary Dun, daughter of the rector of the 
grammar-school at Aberdeen. In the same year he began to prepare his cele- 
brated Essay on Truth, which appeared in 1770; and so much interest did it 
excite that in less than four years it went through five editions and was 
translated into several foreign languages. Its chief aim was to refute the skej)- 
tical writings of Hume, or, in Dr. Beattie's own words, "to overthrow skep- 
ticism and establish conviction in its place."! In 1771 he gave to the world 
the first book of his celebrated poem The Minstrel. It was received with uni- 
versal approbation. Honors flowed in upon him from every quarter. He 
visited London, and was admitted to all its brilliant and distinguished circles; 
and Goldsmith, Johnson, Garrick, and Reynolds were soon numbered among 
his friends. On a second visit, in 1773, he had an interview with the king and 
queen, which resulted in his receiving a pension of two hundred pounds per 
annum. 

In 1774, Beattie published the second book of The Minstrel, the success of 
which quite equalled that of the former. A new edition of his Essay on Truth 
appeared in 1776, together with three other essays, — on Poetry and Music; on 
Laughter and Ludicrous Composition; and on the Utility of Classical Learn- 
ing. In 1786 he published his Evidences of Christianity; and in the year fol- 
lowing appeared his Elements of Moral Science. In 1790 he lost his eldest son,' 



1 A very able article on this essay may be 
found in the Edinburgh Eevieiv, x. 171. 

2 In the early training of his eldest and be- 
loved son, Dr. Beattie adopted an expedient of 
a romantic and interesting description. His 
object was to give him the first idea of a Su- 
preme Being; and his method, as Dr. Porteus, 
Bishop of London, remarked, "had all the 
imagination of Rousseau, without his folly 
and extravagance." 

"He had," says Beattie, "reached his fifth 
(or sixth) year, knew the alphabet, and could 
read a little, but had received no particular 
information with respect to the Author of his 
being, because I thought he could not yet un- 
derstand such information, and because I had 
learned, from my own experience, that to be 
made to repeat words not understood is ex- 
tremely detrimental to the faculties of a young 
mind. ' In the corner of a little garden, with- 
out informing any person of the circumstance, 
I wrote in the mould, with my finger, the 
three initial letters of his name, and, sowing 
garden-cresses in the furrows, covered up the 
seed and smoothed the ground. Ten days 
after, he came running to me, and, with asto- 
nishment in his countenance, told me that his 
name was growing in the gardon. 1 smiled at 
the report, and seemed inclined to disregard 
it; but he insisted on my going to see what 



had happened. 'Yes,' said I, carelessly, on 
coming to the place, 'I see it is so; but there 
is nothing in this worth notice: it is mere 
chance;' and I Avent away. He followed 
me, and, taking hold of my coat, said, with 
some earnestness, ' It could not be mere 
chance, for that somebody must have con- 
trived matters so as to produce it.' I pretend 
not to give his words or my own, for I have 
forgotten both ; but I give the substance of 
what passed between iis in such language as 
we both understood. 'So you think,' I said, 
' that what appears so regular as the letters of 
your name cannot be by chance?' 'Yes,' said 
he, with firmness, 'I think so!' 'Look at 
yourself,' I replied, ' and consider your hands 
and fingers, your legs and feet, and other 
limbs: are they not regular in their appear- 
ance, and useful to you?' He said they were. 
'Came you, then, hither,' said I, 'by chance?' 
' No,' he answered, ' that cannot be : some- 
thing must have made me.' ' And who is that 
something?' I asked. He said he did not 
know. (I took particular notice that he did 
not say, as Rousseau fancies a child in like 
circumstances would say, that his parents 
made him.) I had now gained the point I 
aimed at, and saw that his reason taught him 
(though he could not so express it) that what 
begins to be must have a cause, and that what 



BEATTIE. 



27 



and in 1796 his only remaining one. These afflictions, together with the in- 
sanity of his wife, of which there were some indications even a few years after 
they were married, seriously affected bis health. In April, 1799, he suffered a 
stroke of the palsy, — a repetition of which, in 1802, deprived him of the use of 
his limbs ; and death finally ended his sufferings, in the sixty-eighth year of bis 
age, on the 18th of August, 1803.. He was buried beside his two sons in the 
churchyard of St. Nicholas, Aberdeen. 

The fame of Dr. Beattie rests chiefly upon The Minstrel. It is a didactic 
poem, in the Spenserian stanza, designed "to trace the progress of a poetical 
genius, born in a rude age, from the first dawning of fancy and reason till that 
period at which he may be supposed capable of appearing in the world as a 
minstrel." The character of Edwin, the Minstrel (in which Beattie embodied 
his own early feelings and poetical aspirations), is very finely drawn, and a 
vein of pathetic moral reflection runs through the whole of the poem, which is 
of the purest kind, and highly elevating in its influence. 

The character of Dr. Beattie is delineated in his writings, of which the most 
prominent features are purity of sentiment and warm attachment to the prin- 
ciples of religion and morality. He was the friend of every good cause, and 
was one of the earliest advocates for the suppression of the slave-trade and for 
the abolition of slavery .^ All his treatises, critical, philosophical, and moral, 
are very able as well as very instructive, and are written in a style of classic 
purity ; and it may with truth be said that no one cai^read his works with a 
candid mind and rise from the perusal of them unimproved, — which is the 
highest praise an autlior can receive.^ 

LOVE OF NATURE. 

It is strange to observe the callousness of some men, before 
whom all the glories of heaven and earth pass in daily succession, 
without touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or bearing 
any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to sensi- 
bility, how many are there to whom the lustre of the rising or 
setting sun, the sparkling concave of the midnight sky, the moun- 
tain forest tossing and roaring to the storm, or warbling with all 
the melodies of a summer evening ; the sweet interchange of hill 
and dale, shade and sunshine, grove, lawn, and water, which an 
extensive landscape oifers to the view ; the scenery of the ocean, 
so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous, and the many pleasing 
varieties of the animal and vegetable kingdom, could never afford 



is formed with regularity must have an intel- 
ligent cause. I therefore told him the name 
of the Great Being who made him and all the 
world, concerning whose adorable nature I 
gave him such information as I thought he 
could in some jneasure comprehend. The 
lesson affected him deeply, and he never for- 
got eitlier it or the circumstance that intro- 
duced it." 

1 In his Elements of Moral Science., he de- 
votes a considerable space to the subject of 
slavery, refuting the arguments then adduced 
by its supporters with the triumph of a clear- 
headed logician; while the virtuous indigna- 



tion which he pours forth against the ini- 
quitous S3'stem shows what were his feelings 
as a man. 

2 "Throughout the whole of the North of 
Scotland, in these days, there was not one that 
could compete with Dr. Beattie, the recluse 
professor at Aberdeen, in variety of acc(un- 
plishments; for he was an excellent classical 
scholar, a veritable poet, a scientific as well as 
practical musician, an indefatigable student, 
and, as a metaphysician, unsurpassed at that 
epoch, unless it were by his friend and col- 
league, Dr. Reid." — Gillies' Literary Veteran. 



28 BEATTIE. 

so much real satisfaction as the steam and noise of a ball-room, 
the insipid fiddling and squeaking of an opera, or the vexations 
and wranglings of a card-table ! But some minds there are of a 
different make, who, even in the early part of life, receive from 
the contemplation of nature a species of delight which they would 
hardly exchange for any other, and who, as avarice and ambi- 
tion are not the infirmities of that period, would, with equal sin- 
cerity and rapture, exclaim, — 

'* I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; 

You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace ; 
You cannot shut the windows of the sky, 

Through which Aurora shows her brightening face ; 

You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
The woods and lawns by living streams at eve : 

Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 
And I their toys to the great children leave ; 
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave."^ 

Such minds have always in them the seeds of true taste, and fre- 
quently of imitative genius. At least, though their enthusiastic 
or visionary turn of mind, as the man of the world would call it, 
should not alwaysJncline them to practise poetry or painting, w^e 
need not scruple to affirm that without some portion of this 
enthusiasm no person ever became a true poet or painter ; for he 
who would imitate the works of nature must first accurately ob- 
serve them, and accurate observation is to be expected from those 
only who take great pleasure in it. 

To a mind thus disposed, no part of creation is indifferent. In 
the crowded city and howling wilderness, in the cultivated pro- 
vince and solitary isle, in the flowery lawn and craggy mountain, 
in the murmur of the rivulet and in the uproar of the ocean, in 
the radiance of summer and gloom of winter, in the thunder of 
heaven and in the whisper of the breeze, he still finds something 
to rouse or to soothe his imagination, to draw forth his affections, 
or to employ his understanding. And from every mental energy 
that is not attended with pain, and even from some of those that 
are, — as moderate terror and pity, — a sound mind derives satis- 
faction; exercise being equally necessary to the body and the 
soul, and to both equally productive of health and pleasure. This 
happy sensibility to the beauties of nature should be cherished in 
young persons. It engages them to contemplate the Creator in 
his wonderful works ; it purifies and harmonizes the soul, and 
prepares it for moral and intellectual discipline; it supplies a 
never-failing source of amusement ; it contributes even to bodily 
health ; and, as a strict analogy subsists between material and 
moral beauty, it leads the heart by an easy transition from the 

1 Castle of Indolence, canto ii. stanza 3. 



BEATTIE. 



29 



one to the other, and thus recommends virtue for its transcendent 
loveliness, and makes vice appear the object of contempt and 
abomination. 



OPENrNG STANZAS OF ''THE MINSTREL." 

Ah ! who can tell how hard it is to climb^ 

The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar I 

Ah ! who can tell how many a soul sublime 
Has felt the influence of malignant star, 
And waged with Fortune an eternal war ; 

Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown, 
And Poverty's unconquerable bar, 

In life's low vale remote has pined alone, 
Then dropp'd into the grave, unpitied and unknown ! 

And yet the languor of inglorious days 

Not equally oppressive is to all ; 
Him who ne'er listen'd to the voice of praise 

The silence of neglect can ne'er appal. 

There are, who, deaf to mad Ambition's call. 
Would shrink to hear the obstreperous trump of Fame ; 

Supremely blest, if to their portion fall 
Health, competence, and peace. Nor higher aim 
Had he, whose simple tale these artless lines proclaim. 

The rolls of fame I will not now explore ; 

Nor need I here describe, in learned lay. 
How forth the Minstrel fared in days of yore, 

Bight glad of heart, though homely in array. 

His waving locks and beard all hoary gray ; 
While from his bending shoulder, decent hung 

His harp, the sole companion of his way. 
Which to the whistling wind responsive rung : 
And ever as he went some merry lay he sung. 

Fret not thyself, thou glittering child of pride, 
That a poor villager inspires my strain : 

With thee let Pageantry and Power abide ; 
The gentle Muses haunt the sylvan reign. 
Where through wild groves at eve the lonely swain 

Enraptur'd roams, to gaze on Nature's charms. 
They hate the sensual, and scorn the vain ; 

The parasite their influence ne'er warms, 
Nor him whose sordid soul the love of gold alarms. 



1 " The conception of the commencement of 
the Minstrel is fine, and highly poetical, and 
it is beautifully and vigorously executed ; but 
he already falls off in the second canto, both 
in invention and expression." Read a very 
genial critique on Beattie's Poems in Sir 
Egerton Brydges's Imaginative Biography, i. 
153-173. 

Lord Lyttelton (author of Dialogues of the 
Dead, and of a Dissertation on the Conversion 
and Apostlesfiip of Paul) thus wrote to Mrs. 



Montagu, March, 1771 : — " I read the Minstrel 
with as much rapture as poetry, in her noblest, 
sweetest charms, ever raised in my soul. It 
seemed to me that my once most-beloved min- 
strel, Thomson, was come down from heaven, 
refined by the converse of purer spirits than 
those he lived with here, to let me hear him 
sing again the beauties of nature and the 
finest feelings of virtue, not with human, but 
with angelic strains." 



3* 



30 



BE AT TIE. 



THE POET'S CHILDHOOD. 

There lived in Gothic days, as legends tell, 

A shepherd swain, a man of low degree, 
Whose sires, perchance, in Fairyland might dwell, 

Sicilian groves, or vales of Arcady ; 

But he, I ween, was of the north countrie !^ 
A nation fam'd for song, and beauty's charms ; 

Zealous, yet modest ; innocent, though free ; 
Patient of toil ; serene amidst alarms ; 
Inflexible in faith ; invincible m arms. 

The shepherd-swain of whom I mention made, 

On Scotia's mountain fed his little flock ; 
The sickle, scythe, or plough he never sway'd ; 

An honest heart was almost all his stock ; 

His drink the living water from the rock ; 
The milky dams supplied his board, and lent 

Their kindly fleece to baflle winter's shock ; 
And he, though oft with dust and sweat besprent. 
Did guide and guard their wanderings, wheresoe'er they went 

From labor health, from health contentment springs : 
Contentment opes the source of every joy : 

He-envied not, he never thought of kings ; 
Nor from those appetites sustain'd annoy. 
That chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy ; 

Nor fate his calm and humble hopes beguiled ; 
He mourn' d no recreant friend, nor mistress coy. 

For on his vows the blameless Pho?be smiled. 
And her alone he loved, and loved her from a child. 

No jealousy their dawn of love o'ercast, 

Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife ; 
Each season look'd delightful, as it past. 

To the fond husband and the faithful wife. 

Beyond the lowly vale of shepherd life 
They never roam'd ; secure beneath the storm 

Which in Ambition's lofty land is rife, 
Where peace and love are canker' d by the worm 
Of pride, each bud of joy industrious to deform. 

The wight, whose tale these artless lines unfold. 
Was all the ofispring of this humble pair : 

His birth no oracle or seer foretold ; 
No prodigy appear' d in earth or air, 
Nor aught that might a strange event declare. 

You guess each circumstance of Edwin's birth ; 
The parent's transport, and the parent's care ; 

The gossip's prayer for wealth, and wit, and worth ; 
And one long summer-day of indolence and mirth. 

And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy : 

Deep thought oft seem'd to fix his infant eye ; 



1 There is hardly an ancient ballad or ro- 
mance wherein the minstrel or harper who 
appears is not declared, by way of eminence, 
to have been " of the north countrie." It is 



probable that under this appellation were for- 
merly comprehended all the provinces to the 
north of the Trent. 



BEATTIE. 31 

Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy, 

Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy : 

Silent Avhen glad ; afiectionate, though shy ; 
And now his look was most demurely sad ; 

And now he laugh'd aloud, yet none knew Avhy. 
The neighbors stared, and sigh'd, yet bless'd the lad:^ 
Some deeni'd him wondrous wise, and some believed liim mad. 

But why should I his childish feats display ? 

Concourse, and noise, and toil he ever fled ; 
Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray 

Of squabbling imps ; but to the forest sped, 

Or roara'd at large the lonely mountain's head; 
Or, when the maze of some bewilder'd stream 

To deep untrodden groves his footsteps led, 

There would he wander wild, till Phoebus' beam, 

Shot from the western cliff, released the weary team. 

Th' exploit of strength, dexterity, or speed 

To him nor vanity nor joy could bring; 
His heart, from cruel sport estrang'd, would bleed 

To work the wo of any living thing, 

By trap or net, by arrow, or by sling; 
These he detested, those he scorn' d to wield; 

He wish'd to be the guardian, not the king, 
Tyrant far less, or traitor, of the field. 
And sure the sylvan reign unbloody joy might yield. 

Lo ! where the stripling, rapt in wonder, roves 

Beneath the precipice o'erhung with pine ; 
And sees on high, amidst th' encircling groves. 

From cliff to cliff the foaming torrents shine ; 

While waters, woods, and winds in concert join. 
And Echo swells the chorus to the skies: 

Would Edwin this majestic scene resign 
For aught the huntsman's puny craft supplies? 
Ah ! no : he better knows great Nature's charms to prize. 

And oft he traced the uplands, to survey,_ 

When o'er the sky advanced the kindling dawn. 
The crimson cloud, blue main, and mountain gray, 

And lake, dim-gleaming on the smoky lawn : 

Far to the west the long, long vale withdrawn, 
Where twilight loves to linger for awhile ; 

And now he faintly kens the bounding fawn. 
And villager abroad at early toil : 
But, lo ! the Sun appears, and heaven, earth, ocean, smile. 

And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb. 

When all in niist the world below was lost. 
What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime. 

Like shipwreck'd mariner on desert coast. 

And view th' enormous waste of vapor, toss'd 
In billows, length'ning to th' horizon round, 

Now scoop'd in gulfs, with mountains now emboss'd! 
And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound. 
Flocks, herds, and waterfalls, along the hoar profound. 



32 BEATTIE. 

In truth lie was a strange and wayward wight, 

Fond of each gentle and each dreadful scene. 
In darkness and in storm, he found delight: 

Nor less than when on ocean-wave serene 

The southern Sun diffused his dazzling sheen.^ 
E'en sad vicissitude amused his soul : 

And if a sigh would sometimes intervene, 
And down his cheek a tear of pity roll, 
A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he wish'd not to control. 

3I0RNlNG.'i 

But who the melodies of morn can tell? 

The wild-brook babbling down the mountain side ; 
The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell; 

The pipe of early shepherd dim descried 

In the lone valley ; echoing far and wide 
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ; 

The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide; 
The hum of bees, and linnet's lay of love, 
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. 

The cottage-curs at early pilgrim bark ; 

Crown'd with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings; 
The whistling ploughman stalks afield ; and, hark ! 

Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings; 

Thro' rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs; 
Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour ; 

The partridge bursts away on whirring wings ; 
Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower, 
4-nd shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tour. 

THE HUMBLE WISH. 

The end and the reward of toil is rest. 

Be all my prayer for virtue and for peace. 
Of wealth and fame, of pomp and power possess' d, 

Who ever felt his weight of wo decrease? 

Ah ! what avails the lore of Rome and Greece, 
The lay heaven-prompted, and harmonious string, 

The dust of Ophir, or the Tyrian fleece. 
All that art, fortune, enterprise, can bring, 
If envy, scorn, remorse, or pride the bosom wring ! 

Let vanity adorn the marble tomb 

With trophies, rhymes, and scutcheons of renown, 
In the deep dungeon of some Gothic dome. 

Where night and desolation ever frown. 

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down ; 
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave. 

With here and there a violet bestrown. 
Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave; 
And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave. 

1 Brightness, splendor. The word is used 1 you to acquire the habit. This will very much 
by some late writers, as well as by Milton. contribute towards rendering your life long, 

a " Do you rise early ? If not, let nie conjure \ useful, and happy." — Lord Chatham, Letters. 



BEATTIE. 33 

And thither let the village swain repair; 

And light of heart, the village maiden gav, 
To deck with flowers her half-dishevell'd hair, 

And celehrate the merry morn of May. 

There let the she])herd's pipe the livelong day 
Fill all the grove with love's bewitching wo ; 

And when mild evening comes in mantle gray, 
Let not the blooming band make haste to go; 
No ghost nor sj)ell my long and last abode shall know. 

THE CHARMS OF NATURE. 

Oh, how canst thon renounce the boundless store 

Of charms which Nature to her votary yields ! 
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, 

The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; 

All that the genial ray of morning gilds, 
And all that echoes to the song of even, 

All that the mountain's fostering bosom shields, 
And all the dread magnificence of Heaven, — 
Oh, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven?^ 

THE HERMIT. 

At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, 

And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, 
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill. 

And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove, 
'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar, 

While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began ; 
No more with himself or Avith nature at war. 

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man. 

"Ah ! why, all abandon' d to darkness and woe. 

Why, Tone Philomela, that languishing fall? 
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow. 

And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthrall. 
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay. 

Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn; 
Oh, soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away : 

Full quickly they pass — but they never return. 

" Now gliding remote on the verge of the sky,_ 

The moon, half extinguish'd, her crescent displays ; 
But lately I mark'd when majestic on high 

She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze. 
EoU on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue 

The path that conducts thee to splendor again : 
But man's faded glory Avhat change shall renew? 

Ah, fool ! to exult in a glory so vain ! 

'"Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; 
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you ; 

1 This is the verse of the Minstrel which I almost to tears. See Gillies' Literary Veteran^ 
Dugald Stewart could never, by any chance, re- i. 124. 
cite without a faltering voice and being moved ! 



34 



PALEY. 



For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, 

Perfiim'd with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew: 

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn ; 
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save: 

But when shall Spring visit the mouldering urn? 
Oil, when shall it dawn on the night of the grave ?* 

"'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betray'd — 

That leads to bewilder; and dazzles, to blind — 
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade, 

Destruction before me, and sorrow behind. 
' Oh, pity, great Father of Light,' then I cried, 

* Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee ; 
Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride : 

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free !' 

"And darkness and doubt are now flying away; 

No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn : 
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray, 

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. 
See Truth, Love, and Mercy in triumph descending, 

And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom ! 
On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending, 

And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb." 



WILLIAM PALEY, 17J^S-1805. 

" No writers are rewarded with a larger share of immediate celebrity than 
those who address themselves to the understandings of general readers, who 
investigate truths, develop principles, and convey instruction in that popular 
style and that plain, expressive language which all read with pleasure and 
comprehend with ease."^ Such was eminently the characteristic of Dr. Wil- 
liam Paley. He was the son of the head-master of Giggleswick grammar- 
school, in Yorkshire, and was born in 1743. In November, 1758, he was ad- 
mitted as a sizer of Christ's College, Cambridge. For some time he attracted 
notice only as an uncouth but agreeable idler. " I spent," he says, " the first 
two years of my under-graduateship happily, but unprofitably. I was con- 
stantly in society, where we were not immoral, but idle and rather expensive. 
At the commencement of my third year, however, after having left the usual 



1 There is a tradition, and the internal evi- 
dence certainly confirms its truth, that Dr. 
Eeattie wrote Tlie Hermit to the end of the 
fourth stanza, when under the influence of skep- 
tical opinions. He had not then attained his 
majority, and he put the piece aside, never in- 
tending to publish it, — ending as it did with a 
doubt concerning the soul's immortality: — 

" Oh, when shall Spring dawn on the night of the grave?" 

But when, iij^ few years after, he became a con- 



verted man, and embraced with his whole mind 
and heart the great truths of the Christian re- 
ligion, he sought out his neglected piece, and 
finished it with that fine burst of Christian 
feeling and poetic splendor with which it pro- 
ceeds and ends : — 

"And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb." 

"^ Read two articles on Dr. Paley in the "Qiiar- 
terly Review," ii. 75, and ix. 388; and another 
in the " Edinburgh Review," i. 287. 



PALEY. 35 

partj at rather a late hour in the evening, I was awakened, at five in the 
morning, by one of my companions, who stood at my bedside, and said, 
* Paley, I have been thinking what a fool you are. J could do nothing profit- 
ably were I to try, and can afford the life I lead: you could do every thing, 
and cannot afford it. I have had no sleep during the whole night on account 
of these reflections, and I am now come solemnly to inform you that if you 
persist in your indolence I must renounce your society.' I was so struck with 
the visit and the visitor, that I lay in bed a great part of the day and foi'med 
my plan." The result was that he changed his whole habits, became a close 
student, and at the close of his college course was the first in his class. 

Soon after taking his degree, he obtained the situation of usher at a private 
school at Greenwich; but being elected, in June, 1766, a fellow of the college 
to which he belonged, he fixed his residence at the university, became a tutor 
of his college, and delivered lectures on metaphysics, morals, and the Greek 
Testament. In 1775 he was presented to the rectory of Musgrove, in "West- 
moreland; and in the following year he vacated his fellowship by marrying. 
He was soon advanced by his friend Dr. Law, then Bishop of Carlisle, to various 
preferments, until he was finally, in 1782, made archdeacon and chancellor of 
that diocese. Here he digested and prepared his celebrated work the Prin- 
ciples of Moral and Political Philosophy, which appeared in 1785. His HorcE 
Paulince followed in 1790, and his Evidences of Christianity in 1794. Soon after 
this he became so infirm as to be incapable of preaching, and he devoted his 
attention almost exclusively to the preparation of his Natural Theology, or Evi- 
dences of the Existence and Attributes of a Deity, collected from the Appearances 
of Nature, which was published in 1802. He died on the 25th of May, 1805, 
leaving a wife and eight children. 

'* Dr. Paley was, in private life, a cheerful, social, unassuming character, and 
of an equable temper. As a writer, he did not possess a comprehensive and 
grasping genius, nor was he endowed with a rich and sparkling imagination. 
His mind was well informed, but not furnished with deep, extensive, pon- 
derous erudition. His distinguishing characteristic is a penetrating under- 
standing and a clear, logical head : what he himself comprehends fully, that 
he details luminously. He takes a subject to pieces with the nice skill of a 
master, presents to us distinctly its several parts, and explains them with 
accuracy and truth."i 

Few writers have obtained greater popularity than Dr. Paley. Ten editions 
of his Moral Philosophy were sold during his lifetime ; his Evidences of Chris- 
■ anity was reprinted seventeen times in twenty-seven years ; and his Natural 
fheology reached a tenth edition in the short space of three years from the 
lime of its first publication. His Horoe Paulince^ — decidedly his most ingenious 
and original work — was not so popular, though exceedingly valued by scholars 
and students of divinity. Its object is to open a new department of evidence 
in favor of Christianity, by comparing the Epistles of Paul with his history as 
recorded by Luke in the Acts, and by marking what he designates as the 
" undesigned coincidences" of the one with the other. In this way he shows 
the genuineness of both, and thus furnishes a novel and ingenious, and at the 



1 Quarterly Review, ii. 86. I Apostle Paul incidentally states of himself in 

2 Literally, "Pauline Hours;" that is, lioui-s his Epistles, with what is narrated of him in 
spent in comparing numerous facts which the | the Acts of the Apostles. 



36 



PALEY. 



same time a very conclusive, species of testimony in behalf of revealed reli- 
gion. 

The most exceptionable of all Paley's works is his Moral Philosophy.^ In it 
he takes the ground that "whatever is expedient is right," — a doctrine true, 
indeed, if man could see all things and look into futurity; but a most dan- 
gerous one to a being to whom the future is unknown. Indeed, in many parts 
of this work may be found sentiments altogether too loosely expressed, and 
princij)les of action laid down of a character far too compromising; which at 
once remind us of his remark, when he was a felloAV at Cambridge, and had 
been requested to sign a petition for relief in the matter of subscription to the 
''Thirty-Nine Articles" of the Church of England, that he "was too poor to 
keep a conscience;" in other words, that, where his conscience and his worldly 
interests came in conflict, the former must give way to the latter. So also, 
about the same time, he offered, as a subject which he intended to discuss, 
" The Eternity of Future Punishment contradictory to the Divine Attributes ;" 
but, finding that it would be very displeasing to the master of his college, he 
concluded to insert the word " not" before " contradictory." Such facts reveal 
a character lacking in moral firmness, certainly, if not in moral principle.^ 

THE WORLD WAS 3IADE WITH A BENEVOLENT DESIGNS 

It is a liappy world, after all. The air, the earth, the water, 
teem with delightful existence. In a spring noon or a summer 
evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy 
beings crowd upon my view. " The insect youth are on the 
wing." Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the 
air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous 
activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, 
testify their joy and the exultation which they feel in their lately 



1 For a triumphant reftitation of the dan- 
gerous doctrines of his Moral Philosophy, read 
the Essays an Morality, by that clear-headed, 
conscientious Christian moralist, Jonathan 
Dymond, — one of the best works upon the sub- 
ject. But a clergyman of the Churcli of Eng- 
land has come to the rescue of Paley, in a 
work with the following title: — A Vindica- 
timi of Dr. Paley's Theory of Morals from the 
Objections of Dugald Stewart, Mr. Gishorne, Br. 
Pierson, and Dr. Thomas Brown, dc, by the 
Rev. Latham Wainewright, M.A. His argu- 
ments, if not conclusive, are certainly very 
ingenious. 

2 A writer in the London Athenmim of Au- 
gust, 1848, has shown very conclusively that 
Dr. Paley's Natural Theology is, in the outline 
of its argument and in its most striking illus- 
trations (especially in the well-known story 
of the watch), a stupendous plagiarism, taken 
from a work of Dr. Nieuwentyt, of Holland, 
and translated into English and published by 
Longman, in 1718, under the title of I'he 
Christian Philosopher. A writer in the Church 
and State Gazette, in reviewing this article in 
the Athenieum, remarks, "In the annals of 
literary corsairship we never heard of any 
thing equalling piracy like this; and, unless 
the friends and relatives of Paley can submit 



satisfactory evidence before the tribunal of the 
public that he has had foul wrong done unto 
him, his reputation as an honest writer sinks 
forever beneath the sea of contemptuous ob- 
livion. He is no moj-e the author of th.e Na- 
tural Theology than of any other work which 
he did not write." In a subsequent number 
of the Athenseum a writer comes to the vindi- 
cation of Paley, and partially excuses him on 
the ground that his Natural Theology was 
originally lectures delivered to his students, 
in which he embodied all he had read, without 
giving credit to the sources whence he bor- 
rowed ; and that when these lectures were 
published in the form in which we now have 
them, he was unable to cite his authorities. 
On this defence the editor of the Athenieum 
remarks, " We think the letter of our corre- 
spondent gives the most satisfactory solution 
of this matter that has yet been offered, and 
the best, probably, that can be given. To our 
view, then, the most satisfactory is a most un- 
satisfactory one." 

3 " The common course of things is in favor 
of happiness: happiness is the rule, misery 
the excejjtion. Were the order reversed, our 
attention would be called to examples of 
health and competency, instead of disease and 
want."— Butler's Analogy. 



PALEY. 37 

discovered faculties. A bee amongst the flowers, in spring, is 
one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its 
life appears to be all enjoyment, so busy and so pleased ; yet it is 
only a specimen of insect life, Avith which, by reason of the ani- 
mal being half domesticated, w^e happen to be better acquainted 
than we are with that of others. The whole winged insect tribe, 
it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, 
and, under every variety of constitution, gratified, and perhaps 
equally gratified, by the oflices which the Author of their nature 
has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene 
of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with 
aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it should 
seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted but that this 
is a state of gratification : what else should fix them so close to 
the operation, and so long? Other species are running about 
with an alacrity in their motions which carries with it every 
mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes half 
covered with these brisk and sprightly natures. If we look to 
what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the 
margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so 
happy that they know not what to do wdth themselves. Their 
attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics 
in it (which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention 
and amusement), all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and 
are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the sea-side, in 
a calm evening, upon a shady shore and with an ebbing tide, I 
have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or, 
rather, very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the w^ater, to 
the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or 
three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could 
reach, and always retiring with the w^ater. When this cloud 
came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much 
space filled with young shrimps in the act of bounding into the 
air from the shallow margin of the water or from the w^et sand. 
If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was 
this : if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they 
could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what I 
have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state 
of positive enjoyment : what a sum, collectively, of gratification 
and pleasure have we here before our view ! 

The young of all animals appear to me to receive pleasure 
simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, with- 
out reference to any end to be attained or any use to be answered 
by the exertion. A child, without knowing any thing of the use 
of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to 
speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or 
perhaps of the single word whieh it has learned to pronounce, 



38 PALEY. 

proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first suc- 
cessful endeavors to walk, or, rather, to run (which precedes 
walking), although entirely ignorant of the importance of the 
attainment to its future life, and even without applying it to any 
present purpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without 
having any thing to say, and with walking, without knowing 
Avhere to go. And, prior to both these, I am disposed to believe 
that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with 
the exercise of vision, or, perhaps, more properly speaking, with 
learning to see. 

But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of creation 
hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat no less 
than with the playful kitten ; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as 
well as in either the sprightliness of the dance or the animation 
of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to 
ardor of pursuit, succeeds what is in no inconsiderable degree an 
equivalent for them all, "perception of ease." Herein is the 
exact difference between the young and the old. The young are 
not happy but when enjoying pleasure ; the old are happy when 
free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of 
animal power which they respectively possess. The vigor of 
youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest ; whilst, 
to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive 
gratifications. In one important step the advantage is with the 
old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than 
a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy 
ease is preferable to that which can taste only pleasure. This 
same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a condition of 
great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy 
or tempestuous life. It is well described by Rousseau to be the 
interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry and the end 
of life. How far the same cause extends to other animal natures 
cannot be judged of with certainty. The appearance of satis- 
faction with which most animals, as their activity subsides, seek 
and enjoy rest affords reason to believe that this source of grati- 
fication is appointed to advanced life under all or most of its 
various forms. In the species with which we are best acquainted, 
namely, our own, I am far, even as an observer of human life, 
from thinking that youth is its happiest season, much less the 
only happy one. — Natural Theology. 

PR A YER. 
We find our Lord resorting to prayer in his last extremity, and 
with an earnestness, I had almost said a vehemence, of devotion, 
proportioned to the occasion. As soon as he came to the place, 
he bade his disciples pray. When he was at the place, he said 
unto them, Pray ye, that ye enter not into temptation. This did 



PARK. 39 

not content liim ; this was not enough for the state and sufferings 
of his mind. He parted even from them. He withdrew about a 
stone's cast, and kneeled down. Hear how his struggle in prayer 
is described ! Three times he came to his disciples, and returned 
again to prayer; thrice he kneeled down at a distance from them, 
repeating the same words. Being in an agony, he prayed more 
earnestly ; drops of sweat fell from his body, as if it had been 
great drops of blood : yet, in all this, throughout the whole scene, 
the constant conclusion of his prayer was, " not my will, but thine 
be done." It was the greatest occasion that ever was ; and the 
earnestness of our Lord's prayer, the devotion of his soul, corre- 
sponded with it. Scenes of deep distress await us all. It is in 
vain to expect to pass through the world without falling into 
them. But, whatever may be the fortune of our lives, one great 
extremity at least, the hour of approaching death, is certainly to 
be passed through. What ought then to occupy us ? What can 
then support us ? Prayer. Prayer with our blessed Lord w^as a 
refuge from the storm : almost every word he uttered during that 
tremendous scene was prayer, — prayer the most earnest, the most 
urgent ; repeated, continued, proceeding from the recesses of the 
soul ; private, solitary ; prayer for deliverance ; prayer for strength ; 
above every thing, prayer for resignation. — Sermon viii. 



MTJNGO PARK, 1771-1806. 

MuNGO Park, the renowned African traveller, was born at Fowlshiels, in 
Selkirkshire, Scotland, 1771, and was the seventh of thirteen children. Being 
early placed in the grammar-school at Selkirk, he distinguished himself for 
his ready talents, as well as for great perseverance and application. He had 
an early desire to study medicine, and, after qualifying himself in his pro- 
fession at Edinburgh, he went to London in search of employment, and was 
speedily appointed assistant surgeon on board the Worcester, East Indiaman, 
through the interest of that world-renowned patron of enterprising and scien- 
tific men. Sir Joseph Banks. Mr. Park showed himself every way worthy of 
this appointment; and shortly after his return from the East Indies he entered 
the service of the "Association for the Promotion of Discovery through the 
Interior of Africa," and sailed from Portsmouth on the 22d of May, 1795, in 
the brig Endeavour. 

His instructions were to proceed to the Niger by the nearest and most con- 
venient route, and endeavor to trace its course from its rise to its termination, 
and visit as many of the principal cities on its banks as possible. His vessel 
arrived at the mouth of the Gambia on the 21st of June, and after sailing up 
the river as far as Jonkakonda, he quitted her, and made preparations to pro- 
ceed into the interior of the country by land. It would be, of course, out of 
the question, in this short notice, to go into any of the details of the dangers 
he encountered and the sufferings he endured, full of perilous interest as they 



40 



PARK. 



were : suffice it to say that on the 21st of July, 1796, weak and almost ex- 
hausted, Mr. Park had the inexpressible gratification of coming in sight of 
Sego, the capital of Bambarra, situated on the long-wished-for river, which the 
natives teriu Joliba, or the " Great Water." 

He had not travelled far, however, in the exploration of the Niger before the 
rainy season set in, and he felt compelled to hasten his return, in which he 
suffered quite as much by sickness and encountered as many perils as in his 
advance. Once he was beset by banditti, who stripped him of almost every 
thing he had. Finally he reached the coast, took passage in an American ship 
for the West Indies, and thence to England, and landed at Falmouth on the 
22d of December, 1797, after an absence of two years and seven months. He 
was received with distinguished honor by the African Association, and by 
almost all the other scientific bodies and eminent literary characters of London. 
He made arrangements to publish his travels, and the next year went to Scot- 
land, where in August he married Miss Anderson, the eldest daughter of his 
old teacher at Selkirk. He commenced practice as a physician at Peebles, but 
soon another expedition was planned for him, and on the 30th of January, 
1806, he set sail from England with a party of forty-four for a second explora- 
tion of the Niger. But so severe were the fevers of the country that when 
Park reached Sego, the capital of Bambarra, on the 19th of September, but 
nine out of the forty-four were left, and most of these were sick. At length, 
by his unwearied perseverance, a large boat was constructed for the navigation 
of the Niger, and Mr. Park and the weak remnants of his party set sail. They 
had proceeded as far as Boosa, when the king of the country, angry at not 
having received any presents as a fee to pass through his domains,^ assembled 
a large body of men on the top of a high bluiF at a very narrow place of the 
river, and, as Mr. Park and his companions were about to pass, assailed them 
furiously with lances, pikes, arrows, stones, and missiles of every description. 
A number were killed at once, and Mr. Park, seeing all resistance vain, jumped 
into the river to swim ashore, and was drowned. 

Thus perished Mungo Park, in the thirty-fifth year of his age; a man whose 
natural enthusiasm, scientific acquirements, undaunted intrepidity, patience 
of suffering, and inflexible perseverance — in short, every quality requisite for 
a traveller in the path he adopted — have never been surpassed, and who, had 
he survived, would no doubt have reaped those laurels which more fortunate 
successors in the same career have won. To these qualities in his public cha- 
racter it is pleasing to be able to add those of amiable simplicity of manners, 
constancy of affection, and sterling integrity in private life.^ 

KINDNESS OF A WOMAN TO HIM, AND A SONG OVER HIS DIS- 
TRESS. 

I waited more than two hours without having an opportunity 
of crossing the river; during which time the people who had 
crossed carried information to Mansong, the king, that a white 
man was waiting for a passage, and was coming to see him. He 
immediately sent over one of his chief men, who informed me 



1 Mr. Park did in fact send presents, but the 
treacherous and dishonest bearer kept them 
himself instead of giving them to the king. 



* Read an interesting sketch of his life in 
Chambers's " Biographical Dictionary of Emi • 
nent Scotsmen," vol. iv. 



PARK. 41 

that the king could not possibly see me until he knew what had 
brought me into this country, and that I must not presume to 
cross the river without the king's permission. He therefore 
advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which he pointed, for 
the night, and said that in the morning he would give me further 
instructions how to conduct myself. This was very discouraging. 
However, as there was no remedy, I set off for the village, where 
I found, to my great mortification, that no person would admit 
me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment and fear, 
and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a 
tree ; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable, for the 
wind rose, and there was great appearance of a heavy rain ; and 
the wild beasts are so very numerous in the neighborhood that I 
should have been under the necessity of climbing up the tree and 
resting among the branches. About sunset, however, as I was 
preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my 
horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman returning 
from the labors of the field stopped to observe me, and, perceiving 
that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which 
I briefly explained to her ; whereupon, with looks of great com- 
passion, she took up my saddle and bridle, and told me to follow 
her. Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, 
spread a mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for 
the night. Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would 
procure me something to eat. She accordingly went out, and re- 
turned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused 
to be half broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. 
The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger 
in distress, my worthy benefactress (pointing to the mat, and tell- 
ing me that I might sleep there without apprehension) called to 
the female part of the family, who had stood gazing on me all 
the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task, of spinning 
cotton, in which they continued *to employ themselves great part 
of the night. They lightened their labor by songs, one of which 
was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It 
was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort< 
of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, lite- 
rally translated, were these : — " The winds roared and the rains 
fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under 
our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk ; no wife to grind 
his corn. Chorus. — Let us pity the white man ; no mother has 
he," &c. &c. &c. Trifling as this recital may appear to the 
reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was afiect- 
ing in the highest degree ; I was oppressed bv such unexpected 
kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning I pre- 
sented my landlady with two of the four brass buttons which 

4* 



42 



PARK. 



remained on my waistcoat, the only recompense I could make 
her.^ 

THE 31 OSS IN THE DESERT.'^ 

After the robbers had gone,^ I sat for some time looking around 
me with amazement and terror ; whichever way I turned, nothing 
appeared but danger and difficulty. I saw myself in the midst 
of a vast wilderness in the depth of the rainy season, naked and 
alone, surrounded by savage animals and men still more savage. 
I was five hundred miles from the nearest European settlement. 
All these circumstances crowded at once on my recollection ; and 
I confess that my spirits began to fail me. I considered my late 
as certain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and 
perish. The influence of religion, however, aided and supported 
me. I reflected that no human prudence or foresight could pos- 
sibly have averted my present sufierings. I was indeed a stranger 
in a strange land, yet I was still under the protecting eye of that 
Providence who has condescended to call himself the stranger's 
friend. At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the ex- 
traordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification, irresistibly 
caught my eye. I mention this to show from what trifling cir- 
cumstances the mind wdll sometimes derive consolation; for, 
though the whole plant was not larger than the tip of one of my 
fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its 
roots, leaves, and capsule without admiration. Can that Being 
(thought I) who planted, watered, and brought to perfection in 
this obscure part of the world a thing which appears of so small 
importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufler- 
ings of creatures formed after his own image ? Surely not. Ke- 
flections like these would not allow me to despair : I started up, 
and, disregarding both hunger and fatigue, travelled forwards, 
assured that relief was at hand ; and I was not disappointed. In 
a short time I came to a small village, at the entrance of which 



1 Our own Ledyard, who possessed every 
qualification of a traveller of the highest order, 
thus speaks in praise of women : — 

"I have observed among all nations that 
the women ornament themselves more than 
the men ; that, wherever found, they are the 
Bame civil, kind, obliging, humane, tender 
beings; that they are ever inclined to be gay 
and cheerful, timorous and modest. They do 
not hesitate, like man, to perform a hospitable 
or generous action; not haughty, nor arro- 
gant, nor supercilious, but fuU of courtesy and 
fond of society ; industrious, economical, in- 
genuous; more liable, in general, to err than 
man, biit in general, also, more virtuous, and 
performing more good actions, tlian he. I 
never addressed myself in the language of 
decency and friendship to a woman, whether 
civilized or savage, without receiving a decent 
and liiendly answer. With man it has often 



been otherwise. In wandering over the barren 
plains of inhospitable Denmark, through hon- 
est Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish 
Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide- 
spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if 
hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has 
ever been frienelly to me, and uniformly so; 
and, to add to this virtue, so worthy of the 
appellation of benevolence, these actions have 
been performed in so free and so kind a man- 
ner, that, if I was dry, I drank the sweet 
draught, and, if hungry, ate the coarse morsel, 
with a double relish." 

"* Read some beautiful verses on this tonch- 
ing Incident by the Rev. Robert Mui-ray Mc- 
Clieyne, in his Memoir and Remains, p. 390. 

S He had beei^ waylaid and stripped of every 
thing he t(ad on by a savage baud of Man- 
dipgoeS; 



KIRKE WHITE. 43 

I overtook the two shepherds who had come with me from 
Kooma. They were much surprised to see me, for they said 
they never doubted that the Foulahs, when they had robbed, 
had murdered me. 



HENRY KIRKE WHITE, 1785-1806, 

Unhappy White; while life was in its spring, 

And thy young Muse just waved her joyous wing, 

The spoiler came, — and all thy promise fair 

Has sought the grave, to sleep fore.ver there. 

Oh! what a noble heart was here undone. 

When science' self-destroy'd her favorite son 1 

Yes! she too much indulg'd thy fond pursuit. 

She sow'd the seeds, — but death has reap'd the fruit. 

'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, 

And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low : 

So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, 

No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 

View'd his own feather on the fatal dart 

That wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart: 

Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 

He nurs'd the pinion which impell'd the steel; 

While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest, 

Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast. 

So sang Lord Byron of that most gifted youth, Henry Kirke White, whose 
sincere and ardent piety was equalled only by his genius, his learning, and 
his uncommon ardor in the pursuit of knowledge. He was the son of John 
White, a butcher of Nottingham, and was born at that place in 1785. From 
his very early years he showed a strong thirst for knowledge, and at the age 
of seven tried his hand at prose composition. At school he greatly distin- 
guished himself among his companions, displaying wonderful powers of ac- 
quisition. But his father intended to bring him up to his own business; and 
one whole day in every week, and his leisure hours on other days, were 
employed in carrying the butchers basket. This, however, proved so irksome 
to him that, at the request of his mother, he was apprenticed to a stocking- 
weaver, to prepare himself for the hosiery line. This was scarcely more satis- 
factory to him than his former occupation; and, after a year, his mother, a 
woman of superior intelligence, who early perceived his genius and sym- 
pathized with his spirit, found means to place him in the office of Coldham <fc 
Enfield, attorneys of Nottingham. He devoted himself with steadiness to his 
profession during the day, and passed his evenings in learning the Latin, 
Greek, and Italian languages, together with chemistry, astronomy, drawing, 
and music. To these acquirements he soon added practical mechanics. 
A London magazine, called the Monthly Preceptor, having proposed prize 
themes for the youth of both sexes, Henry became a candidate, and, while 
only in his fifteenth year, obtained a silver medal for a translation from 
Horace, and the next year a pair of twelve-inch globes for an imaginary tour 
from London to Edinburgh. 

In 1803 appeared a volume of his poems. The statement in the preface that 
they were written by a youth of seventeen, and published to enable him to 



44 



KIRKE WHITE. 



get the means to aid him in his studies, should have disarmed the severity 
of criticism; yet the poems were contemptuously noticed in the Monthly Re- 
view. This treatment the author felt very keenly. But the book fell into the 
hands of Mr. Southey, who most kindly and generously wrote to the young 
poet to encourage him; and very soon friends sprang up who enabled him to 
pursue the great object of his ambition, — admission to the University of Cam- 
bridge. Hitherto his religious opinions had inclined to Deism; but a friend 
having put into his hands Scott's Force of Truth, an entire change was 
wrought thereby in his whole character. A most decided and earnest piety 
now became his prominent characteristic, and he resolved to devote his life 
to the cause of religion, and with great zeal entered upon the study of divinity, 
in connection with his other studies. His application, indeed, was so intense 
that a severe illness was the result; on his recovery from which, he produced 
those beautiful lines written in Milford churchyard. 

In the latter part of 1804 his long-delayed hopes of entering the university 
were about to be gratified. " I can now inform you," he writes to a friend, 
"that I have reason to believe my way through college is close before me. 
From what source I know not, but, through the hands of Mr. Simeon, I am 
provided with thirty pounds per annum; and I can command twenty or 
thirty more from my friends, in all probability, until J take my degree. 
The friends to whom I allude are my mother and brother." Poetry was now 
abandoned for severer studies. He competed for one of the university scho- 
larships, and at the end of the term was pronounced the first man of his 
year. Twice he distinguished himself in the following year, was again pro- 
nounced first at the great college examination, and also one of the three best 
theme-writers, between whom the examiners could not decide. But this dis- 
tinction was purchased at the sacrifice of health, and ultimately of life. Of 
this he himself was sensible. "Were I," he writes to a friend, "to paint a 
picture of Fame crowning a distinguished undergraduate, after the senate- 
house examination, I would represent her as concealing a death's head under 
a mask of beauty." He went to London to recruit his shattered nerves and 
spirits; but it was too late. He returned to his college, renewed his studies 
with unabated ardor, and sank under the effort. Nature was at length over- 
come; he grew delirious, and died on the 19th of October, 1806, in his twenty- 
first year. 

Thus fell, a victim to his own genius, one whose abilities and acquirements 
were not more conspicuous than his moral and social excellence. "It is not. 
possible," says Southey,^ " to conceive a human being more amiable in all the 
relations of life."^ And again : " He possessed as pure a heart as ever it 
pleased the Almighty to warm with life." Of his fervent piety, his letters, 
his prayers, and his hymns will afford ample and interesting proof. It was 
in him a living and quickening principle of goodness, which sanctified all his 
hopes and all his affections, — which made him keep watch over his own heart, 



1 The Remains of Henry KMce White, with 
an Account of his Life, by Robert Southey, 
2 vols. 

^ " What an amazing reach of genius appears 
in the Remains of Henry Kirke White! How 
unfortunate that he should have been lost to 
the world almost as soon as known ! I greatly 
lament the circumstances that forced him to 
Btudies so contrary to his natural talent." — 



Sir E. Brydges, Censura Literaria, ix. 393. 
Again, this same discriminating critic says, 
"There are, I think, among these 'Remains,' a 
few of the most exquisite pieces in the whole 
body of English poetry. Conjoined with an 
easy and flowing fancy, they possess the charm 
of a*peculiar moral delicacy, often conveyed 
in a happy and inimitable simplicity of lan- 
guage." 



KIRKE WHITE. 



45 



and enabled him to correct the few symptoms which it ever displayed of human 
imperfection. 

With regard to his poems, the same good judge observes, "Chatterton is 
the only youthful poet whom he does not leave far behind himj" and, in 
alluding to some of his papers, handed to him for perusal after the death of this 
gifted youth, he observes, " I have inspected all the existing manuscripts of 
Chatterton, and they excited less wonder than these." 



SONNET IN HIS SICKNESS. 

Yes, 'twill be over soon, — This sickly dream 

Of life will vanish from my feverish brain ; 
And death my wearied spirit will redeem 

From this wild region of unvaried pain. 
Yon brook will glide as softly as before, — 

Yon landscape smile, — yon golden harvest grow,- 
Yon sprightly lark on mounting wing will soar, — 

When Henry's name is heard no more below. 
I sigh when all my youthful friends caress; 

They laugh in health, and future evils brave ; 
Them shall a wife and smiling children bless, 

While I am mouldering in my silent grave. 
God of the just, — Thou gav'st the bitter cupj 
I bow to thy behest, and drink it up.^ 

SONNET TO C0NSU3IPTI0N. 

Gently, most gently, on thy victim's head. 
Consumption, lay thine hand ! — let me decay. 
Like the expiring lamp, unseen away. 

And softly go to slumber with the dead. 

And if 'tis true, what holy men have said. 
That strains angelic oft foretell the day 
Of death to those good men who fall thy prey, 

Oh, let the aerial music round my bed, 

Dissolving sad in dying symphony, 

Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear. 

That I may bid my weeping friends good-bye 
Ere I depart upon my journey drear ; 

And, smiling faintly on the painful past, 

Compose my decent head, and breathe my last. 



31 Y 31 OTHER. 

And canst thou, mother, for a moment think 
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed 
Its blanching honors on thy weary head, 



^ " I know but one way of fortifying my sonl 
against all gloomy presages and terrors of 
mind, and that is, by securing to myself the 
friendship and protection of that Being who 
disposes of events, and governs futurity. He 
sees at one view the whole thread of my exist- 
ence: when I lay me down to sleep, I recom- 
mend myself to His care; when I awake, I give 
myself up to His direction. Amidst all the 



evils that threaten me, I will look up to Him 
for help, and question not but that He will 
either avert them, or turn them to my advan- 
tage. Though I know neither the time nor 
the manner of the death I am to die, I am not 
at all solicitous about it, because I am sure 
that He knows them both, and that He will 
not fail to support and comfort me under 
them." — Addison : Spectator, No. 7. 



4C KIRKE WHITE. 

Could from our best of duties ever shrink? 

Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink 
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day, 
To pine in solitude thy life away. 

Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink. 

Banish the thought ! — Where'er our steps may roam, 
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree. 
Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee, 

And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home ; 
While duty bids us all thy grief assuage. 
And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age. 

ODE TO DISAPPOINTMENT. 

Come, Disappointment, comel 

Not in thy terrors clad ; 
Come in thy meekest, saddest guise ; 
Thy chastening rod but terrifies 
The restless and the bad. 
But I recline 
Beneath thy shrine, 
And round my brow resign' d thy peaceful cypress twiije. 

Though Fancy flies away 

Before thy hollow tread. 
Yet Meditation, in her cell, 
Hears, with faint eye, the lingering knell 
That tells her hopes are dead ; 
And though the tear 
By chance appear, 
Yet can she smile, and say, " My all was not laid here." 

Come, Disappointment, come! 

Though from Hope's summit hurl'd. 
Still, rigid Nurse, thou art forgiven. 
For thou severe wert sent from heaven 
To wean me from the world : 
To turn my eye 
From vanity, 
And point to scenes of bliss that never, never die. 

What is this passing scene ? 

A peevish April day ! 
A little sun, a little rain, 
And then night sweeps along the plain, 
And all things fade away. 
Man (soon discuss'd) 
Yields up his trust, 
And all his hopes and fears lie with him in the dust. 

Oh, what is Beauty's power ? 

It flourishes and dies; 
Will the cold earth its silence break, 
To tell how soft, how smooth a cheek 
Beneath its surface lies ? 
Mute, mute is all 
O'er Beauty's fall : 
Her praise resounds no more when mantled in her pall. 



KIRKE WHITE. 41 

The most beloved on earth 
Not long survives to-day ; 
So music past is obsolete, — 
And yet 'twas sweet, 'twas passing sweet ; 
But now 'tis gone away. 
Thus does the shade 
In memory fade, 
"When in forsaken tomb the form belov'd is laid. 

Then, since this world is vain, 

And volatile, and fleet, 
AVhy should I lay up earthly joys, 
AVhere rust corrupts, and moth destrays, 
And cares and sorrows eat? 
Why fly from ill 
With anxious skill. 
When soon this hand will freeze, this throbbing heart be still ? 

Come, Disappointment, come ! 

Thou art not stern to me ; 
Sad monitress ! I own thy sway ; 
A votary sad in early day, 
I bend my knee to thee : 
From sun to sun 
My race will run ; 
I only bow, and say, '' My God, thy will be done !" 

TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.'^ 

Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire ! 
Whose modest form, so delicately fine, 

Was nursed in whirling storms, 

And cradled in the winds ; 

Thee, when young Spring first question'd Winter's sway, 
And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight, 

Thee on this bank he threw. 

To mark his victory. 

In this low vale, the promise of the year, 
Serene thou openest to the nipping gale. 

Unnoticed and alone, 

Thy tender elegance. 

So virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms 
Of chill adversity ; in some lone walk 

Of life she rears her head, 

Obscure and unobserved ; 

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows 
Chastens her spotless purity of breast, 

And hardens her to bear 

Serene the ills of life. 



1 This piece, for its beautiful and apposite I passed by any thing in our language in so 
Imagery and fine moral tone, is hardly 6ur- | small a compass. 



4& 



CHARLOTTE SMITH. 



THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 

When, marshall'd on the nightly plain. 
The glittering host bestud the sky, 

One star alone, of all the train, 

Can fix the sinner's wandering eye : 

Hark ! hark ! to God the chorus breaks 
From every host, from every gem ; 

But one alone the Saviour speaks : 
It is the Star of Bethlehem. 

Once on the raging seas I rode ; 

The storm was loud, — the night was dark 
The ocean yawn'd, — and rudely blow'd 

The wind that toss'd my foundering bark. 

Deep horror then my vitals fi'oze : 

Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem, 

When suddenly a star arose : 
It was the Star of Bethlehem. 

It was my guide, my light, my all, 
It bade my dark forebodings cease ; 

And through the storm and dangers' thrall 
It led me to the port of peace. 

Now, safely moor'd, my perils o'er, 
I'll sing, first in night's diadem, 

Forever and for evermore. 

The Star,— the Star of Bethlehem ! i 



CHARLOTTE SMLTH, 17J^9-1806. 

Mrs. Charlotte Smith, daughter of Nicholas Turner, Esq., of Stoke House, 
Surrey, was born in London, 1749. From a very early age she had an insati- 
able thirst for reading, and devoured almost every book that fell in her way. 
She lost her mother when quite young, and, when her father was about to form 
a second marriage, the friends of the young poetess made efforts, most foolishly, 
to " establish her in life," as it is called, and induced her to accept the hand 
of a Mr. Smith, the son and partner of a rich "West India merchant. She was 
then but sixteen, and her husband twenty-one years of age. It was a most 
ill-advised and rash union, and productive of the most unhappy results. In 
1776 her father died, and, a few years after this event, her husband's affairs 



1 " The torch of his inspiration was certainly 
kindled at the inner shrine ; but it was darkly 
destined that his fair dawn was to have no 
meridian, and with a heart full of youthful 
promise and of lofty aspirations, — devoted to 
the noblest and purest objects of humanity, — 
he died while his feet were yet on the thresh- 
old of manhood. Three, at least, of the great 
magnates of literature lamented his fate, and 



were loud in his praises. On examining his 
posthumous papers, Coleridge and Southey 
alike expressed their astonisliment at so much 
genius united to so much industry; and Byron, 
in a truculent satire, wherein almost nobody 
was spared, truth-stricken, suspended the lash 
to scatter flowers liberally on his early grave." 
— MoiR. 



CHARLOTTE SMITH. 49 

Avcre BO involved that he was imprisoned for debt. With great fortitvide and 
devoted constancy she accompanied him, and by her imtiring exertions was 
enabled to procure his release. During his confinement she collected her 
sonnets and other poems for publication. They were much admired, and 
passed through no less than eleven editions.'- 

But soon Mr. Smith's liberty was again threatened, and he went to France. 
His wife and their eight children accompanied him, and they spent an anxious 
and forlorn winter in Normandy. The next year she returned to England, 
and, by her great and persevering exertions, enabled her husband to follow 
her. It now became necessary for her to exert her talents as a means of sup- 
port, and she translated two or three stories from the French. She then tried 
her powers in another line of literature, and in 1788 gave to the public her 
Emmeline, or the Orphan of the Castle, which novel was exceedingly popular. 
In the following year she published another novel, entitled Esthelinda ; and to 
this succeeded, in very rapid succession, Cekstina, Desmond, The Old Manor House, 
The Wanderings of Warwick, The Bayiished Man, Montalbert, and others, besides 
several beautiful little volumes for young persons, entitled Rural Walks, 
JRambles Farther, Minor Morals, — in all, about forty volumes. During all this 
time she suffered severe family afflictions, in the loss of three children, as well 
as pecuniary trials in the adjustment of her husband's affairs. But the hour 
was arriving when grief was to subdue this long-tried victim. Her husband, 
it is said, died in legal confinement abroad in March, 1806 ; and on the 28th 
of October following she herself died, after a lingering and painful illness, 
which she bore with the utmost patience, retaining her faculties to the last. 

As a poetess, Charlotte Smith takes high rank among her countrywomen. 
Her Sonnets are "most musical, most melancholy, and abound with touches of 
tenderness, grace, and beauty; and her descriptions of rural scenery are parti- 
cularly fresh and vivid." 

TO THE 310 ON. 

Queen of the silver bow ! — by thy pale beam, 

Alone and pensive, I delight to stray, 
And watch thy shadow trembling in the stream, 

Or mark the floating clouds that cross thy way: 
And, while I gaze, thy mild and placid light 

Sheds a soft calm upon my troubled breast ; 
And oft I think, fair planet of the night, 

That in thy orb the wretched may have rest ; 
The sufferers of the earth perhaps may go, 

Released by death, to thy benignant sphere, 
And the sad children of despair and woe 

Forget, in thee, their cup of sorrow here. 
Oh that I soon may reach thy world serene, 
Poor wearied pilgrim in this toiling scene ! 



1 Read a most genial sketch of her life in 1 239; and another in his "Imaginative Bio- 
Sir Egerton Brydges's "CensuraLiteraria/'viii. I graphy" 



60 



CHARLOTTE SMITH. 



ON THE DEPARTURE OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 

Sweet poet of the woods, a long adieu ! 

Farewell, soft minstrel of the early year ! 
Ah ! 'tAvill be long ere thou shalt sing anew, 

And pour thy music on the night's dull ear.^ 
Whether on Spring thy wandering flights await, 

Or whether silent in our groves you dwell, 
The pensive muse shall own thee for her mate, 

And still protect the song she loves so well.^_ 
With cautious step the love-lorn youth shall glide 

Through the lone brake that shades thy mossy nest ; 
And shepherd girls from eyes profane shall hide 

The gentle bird who sings of pity best": 
For still thy voice shall soft affections move, 
And still be dear to sorrow, and to love ! 

THE HAPPINESS OF CHILDHOOD. 

Sighing, I see yon little troop at play, 

By sorrow yet untouch'd, unhurt by care, 
While free and sportive they enjoy to-day, 

" Content and careless of to-morrow's fare." 
O happy age ! when Hope's unclouded ray _ 

Lights their green path, and prompts their simple mirth. 
Ere yet they feel the thorns that lurking lay 
To Avound the -wretched pilgrims of the earth. 
Making them rue the hour that gave them birth, 

And threw them on a world so full of pain, 
Where prosperous folly treads on patient worth. 

And to deaf pride misfortune pleads in vain ! 
Ah ! for their future fate how many fears 
Oppress my heart, and fill mine eyes Avith tears ! 



THE CRICKET. 



Little inmate, full of mirth, 
Chirping on my humble hearth ; 
Wheresoe'er be thine abode, 
Always harbinger of good. 
Pay me for thy Avarm retreat 
with a song most soft and sAveet ; 
In return thou shalt receive 
Such a song as I can give. 

Though in voice and shape they be 
Form'd as if akin to thee. 
Thou surpassest, happier far, 
Happiest grasshoppers that are ; 



Theirs is but a summer-song. 
Thine endures the Avinter long, 
LTnimpair'd, and shrill, and clear, 
Melody throughout the year. 

Neither night nor daAvn of day 
Puts a period to thy lay : 
Then, insect ! let thy simple song 
Cheer the winter evening long ; 
While, secure from every storm, 
In my cottage stout and warm. 
Thou shalt my merry minstrel be, 
And I'll delight to shelter thee. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



51 



SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS 

Salbo .liicb in Ibc ^irst gccubc of lljc lUiutmitb Ctnturjr, 

OR FROM 1800TO1809 INCLUSIVE. 



Srya7ity Jacob, historian and critic (1715-1804), was one of the most 
profound scholars of liis day. His chief Avorks are — A New System, or 
an Anahjsis of Ancient Mythology, G vols. 8vo; A Dissertation concerning 
the War of Troy; and Observations on the Poems of Thomas Rowley (Chat- 
terton), Vindicating their Authenticity.^ Such was the singular con- 
struction of his mind, that in the first two of these works he endeavors 
to show that Homer's account of the Trojan War was fabulous, and that 
the city of Troy never existed; while in the last he maintains the 
integrity of Chatterton, — thus going counter, in both conclusions, to the 
settled convictions of the literary world. 

Ca7^ier, £Jllzabeth, essayist and critic .(1717-1806), was the most learned 
female of her times. She had a critical knowledge of Greek and Latin, 
was able to read French, Spanish, and German with tolerable facility, 
and was well versed in Hebrew.^ She pul^lished a volume of Poems 
in early life;^ but she is now best known for her translation of Epic- 
tetus, T.'hich received the highest encomiums from the scholars of the 
day.* She also contributed Nos. 44 and 100 to The Rambler. 

C?iapo7ie, Mrs. JZesfer (1727-1801), was the daughter of Thomas Mulso, 
of Northamptonshire, and was married in 1760 to Mr. Chapone, a young 
practitioner of law. She sent to the Advertiser the story of Fidelia, 
which forms Nos. 77, 78, and 79 of that work. In 1773 she published 
her Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, which has been pronounced 
" one of the best books that can be put into the hands of female youth.'- 
In 1775 she published her Miscellanies in Prose and Verse. She died De- 
cember 25, 1801. 

^a7'wi7i, ^7^as77ins, physician and poet, called the "Poet-Laureate of 
Botany," was born iji Nottinghamshire in 1731. He was educated at 
Cambridge, took his medical degree at Edinburgh, and for a great num* 



1 Seethesubjoctdiscvxssoflin the Compendium 
of English Literature, p. 570. 
' 2 These acquirements were not made, as they 
Jiever should be, at the expense of more femi- 
nine accomplishments. " Upon hearing a lady 
commended for her learning. Dr. Johnson said, 
' A man is in general better pleased when he 
has a good dinner upon his table, than when 
liis wife talks Greek. My old friend Mrs. Car- 
ter,' he added, 'could make a pudding as well 
as translate Epictetus from the Greek; and 
woi-k a handkerchief as well as compose a 
poem.' " — Croker's Boswell, ix. 129. 

8 The best of these is the Ode to Wisdom. 



4 She was highly complimented for this effort 
by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, ix. 
322:— 

" Be thine the glory to have led the way, 
And bcani'd on female minds fair science' ray ; 
Awak'd our fair from too inglorious ease, 
To meditate on themes sublime as these : 
The many paths of nature to explore, 
And boldly tread where none have reach'd before." 

And Dr. Johnson is reported to have said, when 
a celebrated Greek scholar was spoken of, 
" Sir, he is the best Greek scholar in England, 
exce2)t Elizabeth Carter." 



52 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



ber of years practised as a physician in Liclifield. Here lie began tlie 
formation of a botanic garden, and between 1781 and 1792 his principal 
work — a poem called T lie Botanic Garden — appeared, in three parts. For 
a time it had great popularity ; but it is now seldom read.^ He died in 
1802. 
JFbx, Charles James, the celebrated orator and statesman (1749-1806), 
wrote A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second. His 
Speeches, in six volumes, were published in 1815. 

Gilphi, irnilam, a clergyman of the Church of England (1724-1804), 
published Life of Bernard Gilpin; Lives of Latimer, Huss, Wtckliffe, and 
Cranmer; Remarks on Forest Scenery; and Sermons to a Country Con- 
gregation. 

Jlolcroft, T?iomaSy novelist and dramatic writer, was born in great 
poverty in London, 1745. In early life he was an actor. In 1780 ap- 
peared his novel called Alwyn, or The Gentleman Comedian. After 
this he wrote about thirty dramatic pieces, — Duplicity, The Deserted 
Daughter, etc. But the play by which he is best known is The Road to 
Ruin, which is yet occasionally acted. He is also known as the author 
of the old song of Gaffer Gray,^ which is somewhat severe upon the 
inhumanity of the ri?;h. He died in 1808. 

Home, Jb?in, Presbyterian minister, was born at Leith, Scotland, 1722, 
and settled at Athelstaneford. When he published the tragedy of Doug- 
las he had to resign his place. By the influence of Lord Bute, on the 
accession of George IIL, 1760, he received a pension of £300 per annum. 
"With this, added to what he received from his other tragedies, he lived 
comfortably, enjoying the best literary society of Edinburgh, till his 
death in 1808. Of all his works, Douglas alone has lived. 

JTorsley, Samuel, Bishop of St. Asaph's (1733-1806), was one of the 
most eminent prelates of his time. He was a strenuous high-churchman, 
fond of controversy, and as a scholar and critic had few superiors. He 
published disquisitions on the prophets Isaiah and Hosea, a Translation 
of the Psalms, Biblical Criticisms, in four volumes, and Sermons, in three 
volumes. 

Jlu7^d, ^ic/iard (1720-1808), whose talents and learning raised him to 
the bench of bishops, was the author of An Introduction to the Study of 
the Prophecies, two volumes ; Moral and Political Dialogues, three volumes ; 
Sermons, five volumes, 1788. His whole works, in eight volumes, were 
published in 1808. Warburton calls him " one of the best scholars in 
the kingdom, and of parts and genius equal to his learning, and a moral 
character that adorns both." 

Z^ennox, Charlotte, novelist (1720-1804), is the author of several novels, 
— Harriet Stuart, The Female Quixote, etc. ; but they are now little read. 

Macartney, George {^arl), diplomatist, was born in Ireland in 
1737. He was sent ambassador to China in 1792. His Authentic Ac- 



1 " It has been well said that the poetry of 
Darwin was as bright and transient as the 
plants and flowers that formed the subject of 
his verse. He had fancy, command of lan- 
guage, varied metaphor, and magniloquent 
versification ; but the want of nature marred 
all. He had the power to astonish and to daz- 
zle, but lacked the tenderness necessary to 
create sympathetic interest, and without which 



the other is but a tinkling cymbal." — D. M. 
Mom. 
2 The first verse of this song is, — 

" Ho I why dost thou shiver and shake, 

Gaffer Gray ? 

And why does thy coat look so hlue ? 

'Tis the weather that's cold, 

'Tis I'm growing very old, 

And my doublet is not very new, 

WeU-a-day 1" 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



63 



count of the Emhamj, in two volumes quarto, was popular at the time, 
but is now superseded by better and fuller accounts of the Chinese em- 
pire. He died in 1806. 

J^ro77icfgu,J5Jlizabeth, essayist and critic (1720-1800), was the daughter of 
Matthew Robinson, Esq., of York. In 1742 she was married to Edward 
Montagu, Esq., M.P. for Pluntingdon. In three years he died, leaving 
her the whole of his estate. About 1770 she opened her house in Putnam 
Square, London, to what was called " The Blue Stocking Club,"^ which 
was composed of the most eminent literary men of the time. Though in 
the latter part of her life she lost the use of her eyes, slie retained her 
mental faculties to the last, and died August 23, 1800. Her works were. 
Essay on the JVritings and Genius of Sliakspcare, and Epistolary Corre- 
spondence, in four volumes: the former Warton calls "the most elegant 
and judicious piece of criticism which the present age has produced." 

Jlfoore, Jbh7if physician, novelist, and descriptive writer, was born in 
Sterling, 1729. He practiced medicine for many years with great suc- 
cess in Glasgow, and died in 1802. His works are, — A Vieiv of Society 
and Planners in France, Switzerland, and Germany, 2 vols., 1789; View of 
Society and Blanners in Italy, 1781; Medical Sketches, 1785; Zeluco, a 
novel, 1786; Edward, another novel, 1796. Of all his writings, ZeZwco 
was the most popular. The distinguished Sir John Moore, who fell at 
Corunna, was the eldest son of this author.^ 

J^foss, Thomas, an "Independent" clergyman, published a volume of 
Miscellaneous Poems, among which was the once celebrated Beggar's Peti- 
tion.^ He died in 1808. 

Micrj)?!^, Ari/ner, a dramatic and miscellaneous writer (1727-1805), 
wrote numerous plays, and a Life of David Garrick. His comedies and 
tragedies, in six volumes, are now but little regarded. 

J^'hifton, "Rev, Jb7i7Z (1725-1807), of Olney, was in early life engaged in the 
infamous slave-trade. Becoming converted, he settled in Olney, where, 
in conjunction with Cowper, he wrote the celebrated Olney Hymns, many 
of w^liich will live as long as the language. Some of Newton's are — 

"Begone, unbelief, my SaTionr is near;" 
" Come, my soul, thy suit prepare ;" 
" Glorious things of Thee are spoken ;" 
" How sweet the name of Jesus sounds !" 
" Quiet, Lord, my froward heart ;" 
" Safely through another week." 

!Po7'SO?t, !R?'c/iard. This eminent classical scholar was the son of a 
parish clerk in Norfolk, where he was born in 1759. He ultimately 



1 So called from the " blue stockings" worn 
by a Mr. Stillingileet, a member of this lite- 
rary club. Sucli were the charms of his con- 
versation that when he was absent it used to 
be said, " We can do nothing without the blue 
stockings ;" and thus by degrees the name was 
given to the society. — See Croker's Buswell's 
Johnson, viii. 85, 86. Among the brilliant 
constellation of talent and wit which illumined 
her mansion was, first, the - great observed," 
Dr. Johnson ; Mrs. Thrale, afterwards Mrs. Pj- 
ozzi ; Dr. Percy, author of Reliques of English 
Podry ; Dr. Shipley; Dr. Buniey; Lord Ers- 
kine, just then commencing his subsequent 
brilliant career ; Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Beat- 
tie, Loi'd Monboddo, Horace Walpole, Ddniund 
Bmke, Mrs, Elizabeth Carter, Hannah More, 



Miss Burney, afterwards Madame D'Arblay, 
Mrs. Chapone, and Mrs. Bai'bauld. See an arti- 
cle on Mrs. Montagu's Letters, in the Edin- 
burgh Review, xv. 75, and in the Quarterly, x. 
15; also, some letters in SirEgerton Brydges'a 
Censura Literaria, ix. 48. Kead, also, an arti- 
cle on Mrs. Montagu and her Friends, in the 
first volume of Recollections of Literary Cha- 
racters, by Mrs. Thompson. 

8 See the lines of Rev. Charles Wolfe upon 
the burial of the gallant soldier, page 99. 

3 The first verse of this, as many will re- 
member, is — 

" Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, 

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door; 
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span, 
Oh ! give relief, aud Heavea will bless your store." 



54 SUPPLEMENTAR Y A UTHORS. 

became Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge ; and never 
was that professorship more ably filled ; for as a Greek scholar and critic 
he has, probably, never been excelled. His critical pen was especially 
engaged on Euripides, Homer, jEscliylus, XenopJion, and Aristophanes. 
After his death, in 1808, Adversaria, or, Notes tipon the Greek Poets, was 
published. It is painful to be obliged to add that intemperate habits 
cut short his life at the early age of forty-nine. 

T07^teus, ^er. Seilby, S).D. (1731-1808), Bishop of London, deserves 
to be remembered for his admirable little treatise on the Evidences of the 
Truth of the Christian Religion, which should be studied by all young 
persons. 

Se^t'ard, A.nna, called "The Swan of Lichfield,"^ was born in that old 
town in 1747, and died in 1809. She wrote an Elegy to the Memory of 
Captain Cook, and a Monody on the Death of Major Andre. She also j)ub- 
lislied a Collection of Original Sonnets, among which are some very pretty 
examples of that species of composition. The following may be given 
as a specimen : — 



December Moiming, 17 S2. 

I love to rise ere gleams the tardy liglit, 

Winter's pale dawn; and, as warm lires illume 

And clieerlul tapers shine around the room, 
Through misty windows bend my musing sight. 
Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white, 

With shutters closed, peer faintly through the gloom 

That slov^ recedes ; wliile yon gray spires assume, 
Rising from their dark pile, an added height 
By indistinctness given. — Then to decree 

The grateful thouglits to God, ere they unfold 
To Friendship or the Muse, or seek with glee 

Wisdom's rich i^age: hours! more worth than gold, 
By whose blest use we lengthen life, and, free 

Fi'om di'ear decays of age, outlive the old I . 

yVakejfteld, Gilbert, clergyman and critic (1756-1801), was celebrated as 
a writer on controversial divinity, and as a critic upon classical authors. 
He left the Established Church in consequence of his embracing Uni- 
tarian opinions. He published editions of Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, etc., 
which were highly creditable to him as a scholar. 



1 "Anna Seward, yclept the ' Swan of Lich- I Juvenal as Ilayley and such a Lucretius as 
field,' was the Sappho of that era of ribbons Darwin. She wrote with fluency, and poured 
and gum flowers, and a fitting one for such a 1 out a cataract of vei-se." — D. M. Moir. 



MAEY TIGHE. 



65 



^tvcoiul glcc:i(U» 



MARY TIGHE, 177Jf--1810. 

Mrs. Mary Tighe was the daughter of the Eev. William Blackford, of the 
county of Wicklow, Ireland. Her history seems to be but little known to the 
public, as I have tried in vain to find some account of her life; but her early 
death, which took place at "Woodstock, near Kilkenny, March 24, 1810, after 
six years of protracted suffering, has been commemorated by Moore, in a very 
beautiful lyric.^ 

Mrs. Tighe is chiefly known by her poem of Psyche, in six cantos, written in 
the Spenserian stanza, founded on the classic fable of Apuleius, of the loves of 
Cupid and Psyche, or the allegory of Love and the Soul {xpvxn).'^ Many of the 
pictures in this, the chief production of her muse, are conceived in the true 
spirit of poetry ; while over the whole composition is spread the richest glow 
of purified passion. It is a poem, however, to be read as a whole, and cannot 
well be appreciated by any detached passages. A luxurious, dreamy sweet- 
ness pervades the descriptions, and gives them a peculiar charm ; while the 
elegance of the easy-floAving language attests the comi^lete power of the poet 
over her theme.^ Some of her minor pieces, also, are exceedingly, beautiful; 
and the lines On Receiving a Branch of Mezereon are scarcely exceeded, for 
beauty and pathos, by any thing of the kind in the language. 



LOVE 3IUST BE FONDLY CHERISHED. 

When, vex'd by cares and harass'd by distress, 
The storms of fortune chill thy soul with dread, 

Let Love — consoling Love — still sweetly bless, 
And his assuasive balm benignly shed : 
His downy plumage, o'er thy pillow spread, 

Shall lull thy weeping sorrows to repose ; 
To Love the tender heart hath ever fled. 

As on its mother's breast the infant throws 
Its sobbing face, and there in sleep forgets its woes. 

Oh, fondly cherish, then, the lovely plant 

Which lenient Heaven hath given thy pains to ease ! 
Its lustre shall thy summer hours enchant. 

And load with fragrance every prosperous breeze ; 

And when rude winter shall thy roses seize, 
When naught through all thy bowers but thorns remain, 

This still Avitli undeciduous charms shall please. 
Screen from the blast and shelter from the rain. 
And still with verdure cheer the desolated plain. 



1 See this lyric in the Selections from Thomas 
Moore. 

2 This fable, it is said, is a representation of 
the soul here in its prison-house, subjected to 
error. Trials are set before it to purify it: 
two loves meet it, — the earthly, to draw it 
down to sensuous things; and the heavenly, 
who, directing its view above, gains the vic- 
tory and leads off the soul as his bride. 



3 " None of the accomplished ladies of her 
day evinced the powers of imagination which 
shone out in the Psyche of Mrs. Tighe, — an 
adventurous and elaborate effort, full of power 
and beauty, which wanted only a little more 
artistic skill and concentration to have en- 
titled it to a place among the first-class pro- 
ductions."— D. M. MoiR. 



56 MARY TIGHE. 

Through the hard season, Love with plaintive note 

Like the kind redbreast tenderly shall sing, 
"Which swells mid dreary snows its tuneful throat, 

Brushing the cold dews from its shivering wing, 

With cheerful promise of returning spring 
To the mute tenants of the leafless grove. 

Guard thy best treasure from the venoni'd sting 
Of baneful peevishness ; oh, never prove 
How soon ill-temper's power can banish gentle Love ! 
The tears capricious beauty loves to shed, 

The pouting lip, the sullen silent tongue, 
May wake the impassion'd lover's tender dread, 

And touch the spring that clasps his soul so strong ; 

But ah, beware ! the gentle power too long 
"Will not endure the frown of angry strife ; 

He shuns contention, and the gloomy throng 
Who blast the joys of calm domestic life. 
And flies when Discord shakes her brand with quarrels rife. 

Oh ! he will tell you that these quarrels bring 

The ruin, not renewal, of his flame : 
If oft repeated, lo ! on rapid wing 

He flies to hide his fair but tender frame, — 

From violence, reproach, or peevish blame 
Irrevocably flies. Lament in vain ! 

Indifference comes the abandon'd heart to claim, 
Asserts forever her repulsive reign, - 

Close follow'd by Disgust and all her chilling train. 

Indifference, dreaded power ! what art shall save 
The good so cherish'd from thy grasping hand ? 

How shall young Love escape the untimely grave 
Thy treacherous arts prepare ? or how withstand 
The insidious foe, who with her leaden band 

Enchains the thoughtless, slumbering deity ? 
Ah, never more to wake, or e'er expand 

His golden pinions to the breezy sky, 
Or open to the sun liis dim and languid eye. 

Who can describe the hopeless, silent pang 

With wJiich the gentle heart first marks her sway ; 
Eyes the sure progress of her icy fang 

Resistless, slov/ly fastening on her prey ; 

Sees rapture's brilliant colors fode away, 
And all the glow of beaming sympatliy; 

Anxious to watch the cold averted ray 
That speaks no more to the fond meeting eye 
Enchanting tales of love, and tenderness, and joy? 

Too faithful heart ! thou never canst retrieve 

Thy wither'd hopes : conceal the cruel pain ! 
O'er thy lost treasure still in silence grieve ; 

But never to the unfeeling ear complain ; 

From fruitless struggles dearly bought refrain ! 
Submit at once, — the bitter task resign, 

Kor watch and fan the expiring flame in vain ; 
Patience, consoling maid, may yet be thine : — 
Go seek her quiet cell, and hear her voice divine ! 

Psyche, Canto VL 



MAEY TIGHE. 



67 



ON RECEIVING A BRANCH OF 3IEZERE0N WHICH FLOWERED 
AT WOODSTOCK. 

Odors of Spring, my sense ye charm 

With fragrance premature, 
And, mid these days of dark alarm, 

Ahnost to hope allure. 
Methinks with purpose soft ye come 

To tell of brighter hours. 
Of May's blue skies, abundant bloom, 

Her sunny gales and showers. 
Alas ! for me shall jVIay in vain 

The powers of life restore ; 
These eyes, that weep and watch in pain, 

Shall see her charms no more. 
No, no ! this anguish cannot last ! 

Beloved friends, adieu ! 
The bitterness of death were past, 

Could I resign but you. 
But, oh, in every mortal pang 

That rends my soul from life, 
That soul which seems on you to hang 

Through each convulsive strife. 
E'en now, with agonizing grasp 

Of terror and regret. 
To all in life its love would clasp, 

Clings close and closer yet. 
Yet Avhy, immortal, vital spark. 

Thus mortally opprest ? 
Look up, my soul, through prospects dark. 

And bid thy terrors rest ! 
Forget, forego thine earthly part. 

Thy heavenly being trust ! 
Ah, vain attempt ! my coward heart 

Still shuddering clings to dust. 
O ye who soothe the pangs of death 

With love's own patient care. 
Still, still retain this fleeting breath. 

Still pour the fervent prayer : 
And ye, whose smile must greet my eye 

No more, nor voice my ear. 
Who breathe for me the tender sigh. 

And shed the pitying tear, 
Wliose kindness (though far, far removed) 

My grateful thoughts perceive, 
Pride of my life, esteem' d, beloved. 

My last sad claim receive ! 
Oh, do not quite your friend forget : 

Forget alone her faults : 
And speak of her Avith fond regret 

Who asks your lingering thoughts. jDecember, isooy 



1 This poem was tlie last ever composed by 
the author, who expired at the place where it 
was written, after six years of protracted 
malady, on the 24th of March, 1810, in the 
thirty-seventh year of her age. Her fears of 



death were entirely removed before she quitted 
this scene of ti'ial and sufl'ering; and her spirit 
departed to a better state of existence, con- 
fiding with heavenly joy in the acceptance 
and love of her Redeemer. 



68 CUMBERLAND, 



RICHARD CUMBERLAND, 1732-1811. 

Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, 

The Terence of England, the mender of hearts; 

A tiattering painter, who made it his care 

To di'aw men as they ought to be, not as they are. 

Saj', where has our poet this naalady caught. 

Or wherefore his characters thus without fault ? 

Say, was it that, vainly directing his view 

To find out men's virtues, and finding them few, 

Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf; 

He grew lazy at last, and di-ew from himself? 

Goldsmith. 

EiGHAED Cumberland, a celebrated dramatic and miscellaneous writer, wa3 
born under the roof of his maternal grandfather, the celebrated Dr. Richard 
Bentley,! on the 19th of February, 1732. After the usual preparatory studies 
at Westminster School, he was admitted into Trinity College, Cambridge, where 
he graduated with distinguished honor in 1750. Soon after this, while pur- 
suing his studies at the university, he received an invitation from Lord Halifax 
to become his private and confidential secretary. Accordingly, he proceeded 
to London, where he j)ublished his first ofi"ering to the press, — a churchyard 
Elegy, in imitation of Gray's. But it made little impression. "The public," 
he observes, " were very little interested in it, and Dodsley as little profited." 
Soon after this he published his first legitimate drama. The Banishment of 
Cicero ; but it was not adapted for the stage, and it afterwards apjieared as a 
dramatic poem. 

In 1759 he married Elizabeth, the only daughter of George Ridge, Esq., of 
Kilminston, and, through the influence of his patron. Lord Halifax, was 
appointed crown-agent for Fova Scotia; and when that nobleman, on the 
accession of George III., in 1760, was made lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Cum- 
berland accompanied him as secretary. He now began to write with assi- 
duity for the stage, and produced a variety of plays, of which the most suc- 
cessful was the comedy of The West Indian, and thus he became known to the 
literary society of the day. The character of him by Goldsmith, in his " Re- 
taliation," as given above, is one of the finest comjiliments ever paid by one 
author to another. 

In 1780 Cumberland was sent on a confidential mission to the courts of 
Madrid and Lisbon, to induce them to enter into separate treaties of peace 
with England. But he failed to accomplish the object of his mission, and re- 
turned in 1781, having contracted in the public service a debt of five thousand 
pounds, which Lord North's ministry meanly and unjustly refused to pay. 
He was compelled, therefore, to sell all his paternal estate and retire to pri- 
vate life. He fixed his residence at Tunbridge Wells, and there published a 
variety of dramas, essays, and other works; among which were Anecdotes of 
Eminent Painters in Spain, a poem in eight books entitled Calvary, or the 
Death of Christ, and another called the Exodiad. Here also, in 1785, he first 
published, in two volumes, the collection of essays known as The Observer, 
which the next year was considerably enlarged, in 1790 was published in five 
volumes, and in 1803 was incorporated with the British classics. In 1806 he 
published Memoirs of his Own Life, and in 1811 his last work, entitled Retro- 

1 See " Compendium of English Literature," p. 429. 



CUMBERLAND. 



59 



s2Kction, a Poem in Familiar Verse.^ He died on the 11th of May in the same 
year. 

Of the personal character of Mr. Cumberland a pretty accurate judgment 
may be formed from his Memoirs, — a very amusing book, and full of interest- 
ing anecdotes of the men of his time. His self-esteem was great and 'his 
vanity overweening, but he possessed as kind a heart as ever beat, in a 
human breast. In society few men appeared to greater advantage in con- 
versation, or evinced a more perfect mastery of the art of pleasing.^ As a 
writer he may be said to be more remarkable for the number than for the 
excellence of his works; but many of them, it should be remembered, were 
hastily produced in order to better his income; and it has been justly said 
that ''if he has produced much that is perishable or forgotten, he has also 
evolved creations which have been registered as among the finest efforts of 
genius." His Observer is among the most interesting and instructive of the 
scries called the British Classics,^ and affords the highest evidence of the 
author's fertility of imagination, knowledge, humor, and varied power of com- 
position. 

THE PROGRESS OF POETRY. 

The poet, therefore, whether Hebrew or Greek, was in the 
earliest ages a sacred character, and his talent a divine gift, a 
celestial inspiration : men regarded him as the ambassador of 
Heaven and the interpreter of its will. It is perfectly in nature, 
and no less agreeable to God's providence, to suppose that even 
in the darkest times some minds of a more enlightened sort should 
break forth and be engaged in the contemplation of the universe 
and its author : from meditating upon the Avorks of the Creator, 
the transition to the act of praise and adoration follows as it were 
of course. These are operations of the mind which naturally 
inspire it with a certain portion of rapture and enthusiasm, rush- 
ing upon the lips in warm and glowing language, and disdaining 
to be expressed in ordinary and vulgar phrase. Poetry, then, is 
the language of prayer, an address becoming of the Deity ; it 
may be remembered, it may be repeated in the ears of the people 
called together for the purposes of worship : this is a form that 
may be fixed upon their minds, and in this they may be taught 
to join. 

The next step in the progress of poetry, from the praise of 
God, is to the praise of men : illustrious characters, heroic acts, 



1 For an extract from this poem, see " Com- 
pendium of English Literatm-e," p. 714. 

5i Dr. Johnson, in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, 
thus speaks of him : " The want of company 
is an inconvenience, but Mr. Cumberland is a 
million." 

8 Of this Dr. Drake tluis speaks in the fifth 
volume of his Essaj's, p. 393: "The 'Observer,' 
though the sole labor of an individual, is j'et 
rich in variety, both of subject and manner; 
in this respect, indeed, as well as in litci'ary 



interest and in fertility of invention, it may 
be classed with the 'Spectator' and 'Adven- 
turer:' if inferior to the latter in grandeur of 
fiction, or to the former in delicate irony and 
dramatic unity of design, it is wealthier in its 
literary fund than cither, equally moral in its 
views, and as abundant in the creation of in- 
cident. I consider it, therefore, with the ex- 
ception of the papers just mentioned, as supe- 
rior in its jJowcrs of attraction to every other 
periodical comiiosition. 



60 CUMBERLAND. 

are singled out for celebration ; the inventors of useful arts, the 
reformers of savage countries, the benefactors of mankind, are 
extolled in verse, they are raised to the skies; and the poet, 
having praised them as the first of men whilst on earth, deifies 
them after death, and, conscious that they merit immortality, 
boldly bestows it, and assigns to them a rank and office in heaven 
appropriate to the character they maintained in life. Hence it 
is that the merits of a Bacchus, a Hercules, and numbers more, 
are amplified by the poet till they become the attributes of their 
divinity ; altars are raised and victims immolated to their worship. 
These are the fanciful effects of poetry in its second stage : re- 
ligion overheated turns into enthusiasm, enthusiasm forces the 
imagination into all the visionary regions of fable, and idolatry 
takes possession of the whole Gentile world. The Egyptians, a 
mysterious, dogmatizing race, begin the work with symbol and 
hieroglyphic ; the Greeks, a vain, ingenious people, invent a set 
of tales and fables for what they do not understand, embellish 
them with all the glittering ornaments of poetry, and spread the 
captivating delusion over all the world. 

In the succeeding period we review the poet in full possession 
of this brilliant machinery, and with all Olympus at his com- 
mand : surrounded by Apollo and the Muses, he commences every 
poem with an address to them for protection ; he has a deity at 
his call for every operation of nature: if he would roll the 
thunder, Jupiter shakes Mount Ida to dignify his description ; 
Neptune attends him in his car, if he would allay the ocean ; if 
he would let loose the winds to raise it, ^olus unbars his cave ; 
the spear of Mars and the segis of Minerva arm him for the 
battle ; the arrows of Apollo scatter pestilence through the air ; 
Mercury flies upon the messages of Jupiter ; Juno raves with 
jealousy, and Venus leads the Loves and Graces in her train, 
in this class we contemplate Homer and his inferior brethren of 
the epic order : it is their province to form the warrior, instruct 
the politician, animate the patriot ; they delineate the characters 
and manners ; they charm us with their descriptions, surprise us 
with their incidents, interest us with their dialogue ; they engage 
every passion in its turn, melt us to pity, rouse us to glory, strike 
us with terror, fire us with indignation : in a word, they prepare 
us for the drama, and the drama for us. 

A new poet now comes upon the stage ; he stands in person 
before us : he no longer appears as a blind and wandering bard, 
chanting his rhapsodies to a throng of villagers collected in a 
group about him, but erects a splendid theatre, gathers together 
a whole city as his audience, prepares a striking spectacle, pro- 
vides a chorus of actors, brings music, dance, and dress to his 
aid, realizes the thunder, bursts open the tombs of the dead, calls 
forth their apparitions, descends to the very regions of the 



CUMBERLAND. 61 

damned, and drags the Furies from their flames to present them- 
selves personally to the terrified spectators. Such are the powers 
of the drama ; here the poet reigns and triumphs in his highest 
glory. 

The fifth denomination gives us the lyric poet chanting his ode 
at the public games and festivals, croAvned with olive and encom- 
passed by all the wits and nobles of his age and country. Here 
we contemplate Stersichorus, Alcceus, Pindar, Callistratus : sub- 
lime, abrupt, impetuous, they strike us with the shock of their 
electric genius; they dart from earth to heaven: there is no 
following them in their flights ; we stand gazing with surprise ; 
their boldness awes us, their brevity confounds us, their sudden 
transitions and ellipses escape our apprehension ; we are charmed 
we know not why, Ave are pleased with being puzzled, and applaud 
although Ave cannot comprehend. In the lighter lyric we meet 
Anacreon, SajDpho, and the votaries of Bacchus and Venus ; in 
the grave, didactic, solemn class Ave have the venerable names 
of a Solon, a Tyrtseus, and those w^ho may be styled the dema- 
gogues in poetry. Is liberty to be asserted, licentiousness to be 
repressed? Is the spirit of a nation to be roused? It is the 
poet, not the orator, must give the soul its energy and spring. Is 
Salamis to be recoA^ered ? It is the elegy of Solon must sound 
the march to its attack. Are the Lacedemonians to be awakened 
from their lethargy ? It is Tyrt?eus who must sing the Avar-song 
and revive their languid courage. 

Poetry next appears in its pastoral character: it affects the 
garb of shepherds and the language of the rustic ; it represents 
to our view the rural landscape and the peaceful cottage; it 
records the labors, the amusements, the loves, of the village 
nymphs and SAA'ains, and exhibits nature in its simplest state : it 
is no longer the harp or the lyre, but the pipe of the poet, which 
noAV iuA^ites our attention. — Observer, No. 67. 

JESCHYLUS AND SHAKSPEARE COMPARED. 
When I see the names of these tAVO great luminaries of the 
dramatic sphere, so distant in time but so nearly allied in genius, 
casually brought in contact by the nature of my subject, I cannot 
help pausing for a AA^hile in this place to indulge so interesting a 
contemplation, in which I find my mind balanced betAveen tAvo 
objects that seem to have equal claims upon me for my admira- 
tion, ^schylus is justly styled the father of tragedy, but this is 
not to be interpreted as if he was the inventor of it : Shakspeare 
Avith equal justice claims the same title, and his origin'klity is 
qualified Avith the same exception. The Greek tragedy was not 
more rude and undigested Avhen ^schylus brought it into shape 
than the English tragedy Avas Avhen Shakspeare began to Avrite. 
If, therefore, it be granted that he had no aids from the Greek 

G 



62 CUMBERLAND. 

theatre (and I think this is not likely to be disputed), so far these 
great masters are upon equal ground, ^schylus was a Avarrior 
of high repute, of a lofty, generous spirit, and deep, as it should 
seem, in the erudition of his times. In all these particulars he 
has great advantage over our countryman, who w^as humbly born, 
of the most menial occupation, and, as it is generally thought, 
unlearned, ^schylus had the whole epic of Homer in his hands, 
the Iliad, Odyssey, and that prolific source of dramatic fable, the 
Ilias Minor ; he had also a great fabulous creation to resort to 
amongst his own divinities, characters ready defined, and an 
audience whose superstition was prepared for every thing he 
could offer. He had, therefore, a firmer and broader stage (if I 
may be allowed the expression) under his feet than Shakspeare 
had. His fables in general are Homeric, and yet it does not 
follow that we can pronounce for Shakspeare that he is more 
original in his plots, for I understand that late researches have 
traced him in all or nearly all. Both poets added so much 
machinery and invention of their own in the conduct of their 
fables, that whatever might have been the source, still their 
streams had little or no taste of the spring they flowed from. In 
point of character we have better grounds to decide ; and yet it 
is but justice to observe that it is not fair to bring a mangled 
poet in comparison with one who is entire. In his divine per- 
sonages ^schylus has the field of heaven, and indeed of hell also, 
to himself; in his heroic and military characters he has never 
been excelled : he had too good a model within his own bosom 
to fail of making those delineations natural. In his imaginary 
being, also, he will be found a resjoectable, though not an equal, 
rival of our poet ; but in the variety of character, in all the nicer 
touches of nature, in all the extravagancies of caprice and humor, 
from the boldest feature down to the minutest foible, Shakspeare 
stands alone. Such persons as he delineates never came into the 
contemplation of ^schylus as a poet : his tragedy has no dealing 
with them ; the simplicity of the Greek fable, and the great por- 
tion of the drama filled up by the chorus, allow of little variety 
of character ; and the most which can be said of ^schylus in this 
particular is that he never offends against nature or propriety, 
whether his cast is in the terrible or pathetic, the elevated or the 
simple. His versification with the intermixture of lyric compo- 
sition is more various than that of Shakspeare ; both are lofty 
and sublime in the extreme, abundantly metaphorical, and some- 
times extravagant. 

Both were subject to be hurried on by an uncontrollable im- 
pulse, nor could nature alone suffice for either, ^schylus had 
an apt creation of imaginary beings at command ; 

He could call sjoirits from the vasty deep, 



GRAIIAME. 



and they would come; Shakspeare, having no such creation in 
resource, boldly made one of his own. If JCschylus, therefore, 
was invincible, he owed it to his armor, and that, like the armor 
of ^neas, was the work of the gods ; but the unassisted invention 
of Shakspeare seized all and more than superstition supplied to 
^schylus. — Observer y No. 69. 



JAMES GRAHAME, 1765-1811. 

James Grahame;, the author of The Sabbath, was the son of a respectable 
attorney of Glasgow, and was born in that city on the 22d of April, 1765. He 
was educated at the excellent public schools of that city, and had a very early 
and strong desire to enter the clerical profession ; but it was the long-cherished 
wish of his father that he should be bred to his own calling. Accordingly, our 
poet sacrificed his own wishes to those of his parent, and studied law. Many 
irksome years — the best years of his life — were wasted in this, to him, most 
uncongenial pursuit; and it was finally abandoned. For many years, however, 
he toiled on in it, and, from a sense of what he owed to his family, he gave to 
it all the attention of which a mind devoted to higher purposes was capable. 

In 1804 he jDublished anonymously his poem of The Sabbath. He had kept 
from all his friends, and even from his wife, who Avas possessed of fine literary 
taste, all knowledge of what he had been engaged in, and silently laid a copy 
of his poem on his parlor-table as soon as it appeared. Mrs. Grahame was led 
by curiosity to examine it, and, while doing so, he was walking up and down 
the room, awaiting some remark from her. At length she burst into enthu- 
siastic admiration of the performance, and, well knowing her husband's weak 
side, very naturally added, "Ah, James, if you could produce a poem like 
this!" Longer concealment was impossible; and Mrs. Grahame, justly proud 
of her husband's genius, no longer desired to check its bent. 

The, Sabbaih was warmly received throughout Scotland.^ It came from the 
heart; and it spoke to the heart of the nation. Grahame's vocation was now 
confirmed; and, in the following two years, during the long recess of the Scot- 
tish courts he retired with his family to a cottage at Kirkhill, on the classic 
banks of the Esk, and gave himself up to 

" Calm contemplation and poetic ease." 

He now determined to abandon the law, and zealously prepared himself for 
the ministry. This profession had been his early choice. His appearance, voice, 
manner, as well as his talents and his piety, were all in keeping with that call- 
ing. He was ordained in 1809, and soon after settled with his family in Ship- 
ton, in Gloucestershire. In the same year he published his British Georgics, 
a didactic agricultural poem. His health had long been delicate, and he was 
induced, in 1811, to go to Edinburgh for a change of air and for medical advice. 



1 Notwithstanding a rather severe criticism I the same Review made amends for its former 
in the Edinburgh Review, v. 437. But subse- severity. See xvi. 213. 
quently, in reviewing the author's Georgics, \ 



64 GRAHAME. 

But it was apiDarent to all that his clays on earth could not be lon^ He had 
a natural desire of breathing his last in his native city, and Mrs. Grahame 
set out with him, on the 11th of September, for Glasgow. He was barely able 
to reach the place, and died there on the 14th of September, 1811, in the forty- 
seventh year of his age, most sincerely and deeply lamented by a large circle 
of friends.i 

Of the character of Grahame's jooetry there is now but one opinion. Its 
great charms are, its elevated moral tone, and its easy, simple, and unaffected 
description. "His Sabbath will always hold its place among those poems 
which are, and deserve to be, in the hands of the people.'"-^ He exhibits great 
tenderness of sentiment, which runs through all his writings and sometimes 
deepens into true pathos. " We do not know any poetry, indeed, that lets us 
in so directly to the heart of the writer, and produces so full and pleasing a 
conviction that it is dictated by the genuine feelings which it aims at commu- 
nicating to the reader. If there be less fire and elevation than in the strains 
of some of his contemporaries, there is more truth and tenderness than is com- 
monly found along with those qualities."^ 

SABBATH MORNING. 

How still tlie morning of the hallow'd day ! 
Mute is the voice of rural labor, hush'd 
The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song. 
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy Avreath 
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers 
That yester-morn bloom' d waving in the breeze. 
Sounds the most faint attract the ear, — the hum 
Of early bee, the trickling of tlie dew, 
The distant bleating midway up the hill. 
Calmness seems thron'd on yon unmoving cloud. 
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas, 
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale, 
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark 
AVarbles his heaven-tuned song ; the lulling brook 
Murmurs more gently do'wn the deep-sunk glen ; 
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke 
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals 
The voice of psalms, the simj)le song of praise. 

With dove-like wings Peace o'er yon village broods ; 
The dizzying mill-wheel rests ; the anvil's din 
Hath ceased ; all, all around is quietness. 
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare 
Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man, 
Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free, 
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large ; 
And, as his stiff unwieldy bulk he rolls, 
His iron-arm'd hoofs gleam in the morning ray. 

But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys. 
Hail, Sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day ! 
On other days the man of toil is doom'd 
To eat his joyless bread lonely, the ground 

1 Professor Wilson lias written some beauti- I 2 Quarterly Review, iii. 457. 
ful lines to his memory. | 3 Edinburgh Review, xvi. 216. 



GRAHAME, 



m 



Both seat and board, screen' d from the winter's cold 

And snmmei-'s heat by neighboring hedge or tree ; 

But on this day, embosom'd in his home. 

He shares tlie frugal meal with those he loves ; 

With tliose he loves lie shares the heartfeh joy 

Of giving thanks to God, — not thanks of form, 

A word and a grimace, but reverently, 

With cover'd face and upward earnest eye. 

Hail, Sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day! 

The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe 

The morning air pure from the city's smoke ; 

While wandering slowly up the river-side, 

He meditates on Him whose power he marks 

In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough, 

As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom 

Around the roots ; and while he thus surveys 

With elevated joy each rural charm. 

He hopes (yet fears presumption in the hope) 

To reach those realms where Sabbath never ends. 



A SUMMER SABBATH WALKA 

Delightful is this loneliness : it calms 
My heart : pleasant the cool beneath these elms 
That throw across the stream a moveless shade. 
Here Nature in her midnoon-whisper sjieaks ; 
How peaceful every sound ! ^ * 

* * -x- 4f * 

Now let me trace the stream up to its source 
Among the hills, its runnel by degrees 
Diminishing, the murmur turns a tinkle. 
Closer and closer still the banks approach. 
Tangled so thick with pleaching bramble shoots. 
With brier and hazel branch, ^nd hawthorn spray, 
That, fain to quit the dingle, glad I mount 
Into the open air : grateful the breeze 
That fans my throbbing temples ! smiles the plain 
Spread wide below : how sweet the placid view ! 
But, oh, more sweet the thought — heart-soothing thonght- 
That thousands and ten thousands of the sons 
Of toil partake this day the common joy 
Of rest, of peace, of viewing hill and dale, 
Of breathing in the silence of the woods, 
And blessing Him who gave the Sabbath-day ! 
Yes ! my heart flutters with a freer throb, 
To think that now the townsman wanders forth 
Among the fields and meadows, to enjoy 
The coolness of the day's decline, to see 
His children sport around, and simply pull 



1 " The genius of Grahame is characterized 
bj- that cheerfulness wliich seeks and sees 
bi^auty in all the aspects of creation, and finds 
delight in whatever is high, holy, 'pure, and 
of good report.' This must be fielt by every 



one capable of dissociating fanaticism from 
true religion, and of believing that Chris- 
tianity and gloom, instead of being synony- 
mous terms, are utterly irreconcilable and 
separated." — MoiR. 



66 GRAHAME. 

The flower and weed promiscuous, as a boon 
Which proudly in his breast they smiling fix. 

it * * -s^- * 

But, hark ! a plaintive sound floating along ! 
'Tis from yon heath-roof d shieling ; now it dies 
Away, now rises full : it is the song 
Which He, Avho listens to the hallelujahs 
Of choiring serapliim, delights to hear : 
It is the music of the heart, the voice 
Of venerable age, of guileless youth, 
In kindly circle seated on the ground 
Before their wicker door. Behold the man ! 
The grandsire and the saint ; his silvery locks 
Beam in the parting ray ; before him lies. 
Upon the smooth-cropt sward, the open book, 
His comfort, stay, and ever-new delight ; 
While heedless at a side, the lisping l3oy 
Fondles the lamb that nightly shares his couch. 

THE POOR MAN'S FUNERAL. 

Yon motley, sable-suited throng, that wait 
Around the poor man's door, announce a tale 
Of woe : — the husband, parent, is no more. 
Contending with disease, he labor'd long, 
By penury compell'd ; yielding at last. 
He laid him down to die ; but, lingering on 
From day to day, he from his sick-bed saw, 
Heart-broken quite, his children's looks of want 
Veil'd in a clouded smile ; alas ! he heard 
The elder lispingly attempt to still 
The younger's plaint ; languid he raised his head, 
And thought he yet could toil, but sunk 
Into the arms of Death, — the poor man's friend. 

The coffin is borne oul ; the humble pomp 
Moves slowly on ; the orphan mourner's hand 
(Poor helpless child !) just reaches to the pall. 
And now they pass into the field of graves. 
And now around the narrow house they stand, 
And view the plain black board sink from the siglit. 
Hollow the mansion of the dead resounds, 
As falls each spadeful of the bone-mix'd mould. 
The turf is spread ; uncover'd is each head, — 
A last farewell : all turn their several ways. 
Woes me ! those tear-dimm'd eyes, that sobbing breast ! 
Poor child ! thou thinkest of the kindly hand 
That wont to lead thee home: no more that hand 
Shall aid thy feeble gait, or gently stroke 
Thy sun-bleach' d head and downy cheek. 
But go, a mother waits thy homeward steps ; 
In vain her eyes dwell on the sacred page, — 
Her thoughts are in the grave ; 'tis thou alone. 
Her first-born child, canst rouse that statue-gaze 
Of woe profound. Haste to the widow' d arms ; 
Look with thy father's look, speak with his voice, 
And melt a heart that else will break with grief. 



KNOWLES. 67 



HERBERT KNOWLES, 1798-1817. 

This most promising youth was born at Canterbury, in the year 1798. He 
early lost both father and mother, but, as the poet Southey says, " was picked 
out of an humble situation for his genius, and sent to Richmond school (York- 
shire), by Dr. Andrews, Dean of Canterbury." His friends designed to send him 
to the University; and accordingly they endeavored to raise the means. Southey 
was applied to, and raised at once pledges for £30 a year for four years, — he 
himself, with his accustomed generosity, giving one-third of it. But, alas ! as 
in the case of Heniy Kirke White, the fair promise which high principle, 
talent, and good sense combined seemed to hold forth, was blighted in the 
bud; for, in little more than two months after he received the news of what 
his friends had done to aid him, Herbert Knowles was laid in his grave. 

Of the following churchyard poem, written but a short time before he was 
laid in the grave himself, a writer in the twenty-first volume of the Quarterly 
Review thus speaks : — " The reader will remember that they are the verses of a 
schoolboy, who had not long been taken from one of the lowest stations of life; 
and he will then judge what might have been expected from one who was 
capable of writing with such strength and originality upon the tritest of all 
subjects." 

LINES WRITTEN IN THE CHURCHYARD OF RICHMOND, 

YORKSHIRE. 

" It is good for us to be here : if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles : one for Thee, 
and cne for Moses, and one for Ellas." — Matt. xvil. 4. 

Methinks it is good to be here ; 
If thou wilt, let us build, — but for whom ? 

Nor Elias nor Moses appear ; 
But the shadows of eve, that encompass with gloom 
The abode of the dead and the place of the tomb. 

Shall we build to Ambition ? Ah, no ! 
Affrighted, he shrinketh away ; 

For see, they would pin him below 
In a dark narrow cave, and, begirt with cold clay, 
To the meanest of reptiles a peer and a prey. 

To Beauty? Ah, no ! she forgets 
The charms which she wielded before ; 

Nor knows the foul worm that he frets 
The skin that but yesterday fools could adore 
For the smoothness it held or the tint which it wore. 

Shall we build to the purple of Pride, 
The trappings which dizen the proud ? 

Alas ! they are all laid aside, 
And here's neither dress nor adornment allow'd, 
Save the long winding-sheet and the fringe of the shroud. 

To Riches ! Alas ! 'tis in vain : 
Who hid in their turns have been hid ; 

The treasures are squander' d again ; 
And here in the grave are ail metals forbid, 
Save the tinsel that shines on the dark coffin-lid. 



68 U ^..K^T. 

To the pleasures vl^ich Mirth can afford, 
The revel, the langh, and the jeer ? 

Ah ! here is a plentiful board, 
But the guests are all mute as their pitiful cheer, 
And none but the worm is a reveller here. 

Shall we build to Affection and Love ? 
Ah, no ! they have wither d and died, 

Or Bed with the spirit above. 
Friends, brothers, and sisters are laid side by side, 
Yet none have saluted, and none have replied. 

Unto Sorrow ? The Dead cannot grieve ; 
Not a sob, not a sigh meets mine ear. 

Which Compassion itself could relieve. 
Ah ! sweetly they slumber, nor love, hope, or fear ; 
Peace ! peace is the watchword, the only one here. 

Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow ? 
Ah, no ! for his empire is known, 

And here there are trophies enow ! 
Beneath the cold dead and around the dark stone 
Are the signs, of a sceptre that none may disown. 

The first tabernacle to Hope we will build, 
And look for the sleepers around us to rise ; 

The second to Faith, Avhich insures it fulfill'd ; 
And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice. 
Who bequeath'd us them both when He rose to the skies. 



JORJV WOLCOT, 1738-1819. 



Dr. John Wolcot, better known by the appellation of "Peter Pinda"r" (under 
gjvhich name he published numerous satirical effusions upon the reigning sove- 
reign, George III.), was "born at Dodbrooke, in Devonshire, on the 9th of May, 
1738. He was apprenticed to his uncle, a respectable surgeon and apothecary 
at Fowey, in Cornwall. After going to London to attend the hospitals, he 
entered upon the practice of the profession, and in 1767 was appointed the 
medical attendant of Sir William Trelawney, who had been just nominated 
Governor of Jamaica. Finding there, however, but little to do in his profession, 
he solicited and obtained from his patron the gift of a living, which happened 
to be then vacant, in "the Church." "The Bishop of London ordained the 
graceless neophyte," and Wolcot entered upon those sacred duties for which he 
was so little spiritually qualified. But Sir William dying soon after, and there 
being no prospect of preferment in "the Church," Wolcot returned to Eng- 
land, and established himself as a physician at Truro, in Cornwall, where he 
practised about four years. 

By this time he had acquired some reputation as a satirical poet by an 
effusion entitled A Su-pflicatory Episih to the Reviewers; and, inheriting £2000 
from his uncle, he concluded, in 1782, to remove to London, "where he might 
have a wider field for his talents. Here he published Li/ric Odes to the Royal 



WOLCOT. 69. 

Academicians, in which he attacked West and other eminent artists: with theso 
the public were so pleased that he continued the subject, under the title of 
More Lyric Odes. In 1786, a certain little obnoxious insect having been dis- 
covered on the plate of the king, he published The Lousiad, an Heroi-comic 
Poem, in Jive cantos, in which he ridicules the event with inimitable drollery. 
This was followed by a humorous poetical epistle to James Boswell, the bio- 
grapher of Johnson, entitled Bozzy and Piozzi, or the British Biographers. 
Then succeeded Peeps at St. James, Royal Visits, &c., in which the personal 
habits of the king were ridiculed, and numerous other satirical pieces, aimed 
at different individuals. Indeed, so prolific was his pen that between 1778 and 
1808 more than sixty poetical pamphlets were issued by this witty writer; and 
so formidable was he considered that it was said the ministry endeavored to 
bribe him to silence. In 1793 "Wolcot sold the copypght of his works to the 
booksellers for an annuity of £250, payable half-yearly. He had been ill for 
some time, and the purchasers calculated upon his speedy death: but, to their 
great vexation and loss, he recovered, and continued to enjoy his annuity for 
more than twenty years. He died at his residence in Somers' Town on the 
14th January, 1819. 

Dr. Wolcot was certainly one of the most original poets England has pro- 
duced; his productions displaying not merely wit and smartness, but a pro- 
found knowledge of the world and of the human heart, combined with a sound 
and cultivated understanding. His serious poems evince the same command 
of language and originality of ideas as are displayed in his satires; though ho 
excelled in the latter. No man, perhaps, ever enjoyed so much temporary 
popularity as Peter Pindar; and he himself says, that when the Duke of Kent 
was in America, taking a stroll into the country, he entered a neat little farm- 
house, and, seeing a pretty girl with a book in her hand, he said, with a sort 
of sneer, "And pray, do you have books here, my dear?" "Oh, yes, sir/' the 
girl ver^ archly replied : " we have the Bible and Peter Pindar." ^ 

TO JAMES BOSWELL. 

O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, wliate'er thy name, 

Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame ; 

Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth 

To eat Macpherson midst his native north ; 

To frighten grave professors with his roar, 

And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore, 

All hail ! 

Triumphant thou through Time's vast gulf shall sail, 

The pilot of our literary whale ; 

Close to the classic Eambler shalt thou cling, 

Close as a supple courtier to a king ; 

Fate shall not shake thee off, with all its power ; 

Stuck like a bat to some old ivied tower. 

Nay, though thy Johnson ne'er had bless' d thy eyes, 

Paoli's deeds had raised thee to the skies ; 

Yes, his broad wing had raised thee (no bad hack), 

A Tom-tit twittering on an eagle's back. 



1 " Wolcot was a genuine man of his sort, 
though his sort was not of a very dignified 
species. There does not seem to have been 
any real malice in him. He attacked great- 



ness itself, because he thought it could afford 
the joke ; and he dared to express sympathies 
with the poor and outcast." — Leigh Hunt'8 
Wit and Humor. 



70 WOLCOT. 



MA Y DA Y. 

The daisies peep from every field, 
And violets sweet their odor yield ; 
The purple blossom paints the thorn, 
And streams reflect the blush of morn. 
Then, lads and lasses all, be gay, 
For this is nature's holiday. 

Let lusty Labor drop his flail. 
Nor woodman's hook a tree assail ; 
The ox shall cease his neck to bow, 
And Clodden yield to rest the plough. 
Then, lads, &c. 

Behold the lark in ether float, 
While rapture swells the liquid note ! 
What warbles he, with merry cheer ? 
" Let Love and Pleasure rule the year !" 
Then, lads, &c. 

Lo ! Sol looks down with radiant eye, 
And throws a smile around his sky ; 
Embracing hill, and vale, and stream, 
And warming nature with his beam. 
Then, lads, &c. 

The insect tribes in myriads pour, 
And kiss with zephyr every flower : 
Shall these our icy hearts reprove, 
And tell us we are foes to Love ? 
Then, lads, &c. 



THE RAZOR-SELLER. 

A fellow in a^arket-town, 

Most musical, cried razors up and down, 

And ofler'd twelve for eight een-pence ; 
Which certainly seem'd wondrous cheap, 
And for the money quite a heap. 

As every man would buy, with cash and sense. 

A country bumpkin the great oflTer heard, — • 
Poor Hodge, who suifer'd by a broad, black beard, 

That seem'd a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose; 
With cheerfulness the eighteen-pence he paid. 
And proudly to himself, in whispers, said, 

" This rascal stole the razors, I suppose. 

" No matter if the fellow he a knave. 
Provided that the razors shave; 

It certainly will be a monstrous prize." 
So home the clown with his good fortune went. 
Smiling in heart and soul, content. 

And quickly soap'd himself to ears and eyes. 



WOLCOT. 71 

Being well lathcr'd from a disli or tub, 
Hodge now began witli grinning pain lo grub, 

Just like a liedger cutting furze : 
'Twas a vile razor ! — then the rest he tried. 
All were impostors. "Ah!" Hodge sigli'd, 

" I wish my eighteen-pence within my purse." 

Hodge sought the fellow, — found him, — and begun : 
" P'rhaps, Master Razor-rogue, to you 'tis fun 

That people flay themselves out of their lives : 
You rascal ! for an liour have I been grubbing, 
Giving my crying Avliiskers here a scrubbing, 

With razors just like oyster-knives. 
Sirrah ! I tell you, you're a knave, - 
To cry up razors that can't shave." 

" Friend," quoth the razor-man, " I'm not a knave : 

As for the razors you have bought, 

Upon my soul I never thought 
That they would shave." 
"Not think they'd shave!" quoth Hodge, with wondering eyes. 

And voice not much unlike an Indian yell ; 
"What were they made for, then, you dog?" he cries. 

" Made !" quoth the fellow, with a smile, — " to sell." 



THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS. 

A brace of sinners, for no good, 

Were order'd to the Virgin Mary's shrine. 

Who at Loretto dwelt in wax, stone, wood. 

And in a curl'd white wig look'd wondrous fine. 

Fifty long miles had these sad rogues to travel. 

With something in their shoes much worse than gravel ; 

In short, their toes so gentle to amuse, 

The priest had order'd peas into their shoes : 

A nostrum famous in old popish times 
For purifying souls deep sunk in crimes : 

A sort of apostolic salt. 

That popish parsons for its powers exalt. 
For keeping souls of sinners sweet. 
Just as our kitchen salt keeps meat. 

The knaves set off on the same day, 
Peas in their shoes, to go and pray ; 

But very different was their speed, I wot : 
One of the sinners gallop' d on, 
Light as a bullet from a gun ; 

The other limp'd as if he had been shot. 

One saw the Virgin, soon, — jpeccavi cried, — 

Had his soul whitewash'd all so clever ; 
When home again he nimbly hied. 

Made fit with saints above to live forever. 



72 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



In coming back, however, let me say, 

He met his brother rogue about half-way, 

Hobbling with outstretch'd hands and bending knees, 

Cursing the souls and bodies of the peas, 

His eyes in tears, his cheeks and brows in SAve-at, 

Deep sympathizing with his groaning feet. 

" How now !" the light-toed, whitewash'd ijilgrim broke, 

"You lazy lubber!" 
"You see it!" cried the other; "'tis no joke; 
My feet, once hard as any rock, 

Are now as soft as blubber. 

" But, brother sinner, do explain 
How 'tis that you are not in pain. 

What power hath work'd a wonder for your toes. 
Whilst I just like a snail am crawling. 
Now groaning, now on saints devoutly bawling, 

Whilst not a rascal comes to ease my woes ? 

" How is't that you can like a greyhound go, 

Merry as if nought had happen'd, burn ye ?" 
" Why,"^ cried the other, grinning, " you must know. 
That just before I ventured on my journey, 
To walk a little more at ease, 
I took the liberty to BoiL my peas !" 



SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS 
OR FROM 1810 TO 1819 INCLUSIVE. 



;)iuste7i, J^cine (1775-1817), daughter of a parish clergyman, was deservedly 
distinguished in her day as a novelist, for her beauty of style and de- 
scription, and tlie liigli moral tone of all her writings. The chief of 
them are — Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Sense and 
Sensibility. Archbishop Whately says of her novels, "They may be 
safely recommended as combining in an eminent degree instruction with 
amusement." ^ 



1 "Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Ansten, is 
the perfect type of a novel of common life : 
the story so concisely and dramatically told, 
the language so simple, the shades and half 
shades of human character so clearly presented, 
and the operations of various motives so deli- 
cately traced, attest this gifted woman to have 
been the perfect mistress of her art." — Arnold's 
English Literature. 

" 1826, March 14. Read again, and for the 
third time at least, Miss Austen's finely-written 



novel of Pride and Prejudice. That j'oung 
lady had a talent for describing the involve- 
ments and feelings and characters of ordinary 
life, Avhich is to me the most wonderful I ever 
mot with. The big bow-wow strain I can do 
myself like any now going; but the exquisite 
touch which renders ordinary commonplace 
things and characters interesting from tlio 
truth of the description and the sentiment, is 
denied to me."— Sir Walter Scott. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



73 



^rtmtoiif Majy (Miss Balfour of Orkney; born in Orkney, 1778), was 
the wife of Rev. Mr. Brunton, of Edinburgh. She wrote Self-Control, 
and Discipline, — two novels of superior merit. 

Jf'erquso?!, A.dam (1724-1816), was Professor of Natural Philosophy and 
of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. His chief works 
are — The History of Civil Society, 1766 {institutes of Moral Philosophy, 1769 ; 
The History of the Roman Republic, 1783. Of these the last has been the 
most popular. 

J^orsyth, Jbsep/i (1763-1815), published Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and 
Letters during an Excursion in Italy in 1802 and lS03,—an admirable 
work, giving in a short compass much information. 

Ilai7iiUo?i, Mt^s. £Jllzabefh (1758-1816), miscellaneous writer, was born 
in Belfast. She wrote The Cottagers of Glenburnie, — an admirable novel or 
moral tale of cottage life, — The Modern Philosopher, Letters on Education, 
Letters of a Hindoo Rajah,^ &c. 

Zaing, Malcolm (1762-1818), was a Scottish lawyer. He wrote A His- 
tory of Scotland from 1603 to 1707, in which he triumphantly refutes the 
authenticity of Ossian's Poems ; and Dissertations on the Gowrie Plot and 
the Murder of Darnley, In all his historical writings he shows most faith- 
ful and diligent research, and the strictest regard to truth. 

ZfCwis, Jb/in C/ietn^ode, a traveller, who died in 1815, is favorably 

known for a much-admired work, A Classical Tour in Italy. 
I.ewis, Matt?iew Gregory (1773-1818), was distinguished in his day 

as a novelist of the terrific school. He wrote The Monk (hence he is 
• called by Byron "Monk Lewis"), a tale of wickedness and terror. Tales 

of Wonder, and Tales of Horror, &c. But his works have now fallen 

into merited oblivion. 

JOeyden, Jbkny poet and Oriental scholar, was born in Eoxburghshire, on 
the southern boundary of Scotland, in 1775. He entered '* the Church," 
but left it on being appointed by government, surgeon's assistant at 
Madras. He qualified himself for his office in six months, and sailed for 
the East in 1802. After going from place to place in search of knowledge, 
he died in Java in 1811.^ His acquisitions as a linguist were second 
only to those of Sir William Jones. His longest poem is entitled Scenes 
of Infancy; his ballad. The Mermaid,^ and Ode to an Indian Gold Coin, 
are his best short pieces. His Poetical Remains, with a Memoir, were 
published in 1819. 

McJVeil, Sector (1746-1818), a Scotch poet. He published in 1789 The 
Harp, a legendary poem, and in 1795 his moral tale, Scotland's Skaith, or 
the History o' Will and Jean, depicting the evil effects (skaith*) of in- 
temperance. Byron says his works are deservedly popular. 

Malone, JEJdft^ard (1741-1812), a dramatic critic and commentator, pub- 
lished an Historical Account of the English Stage, Memoirs of Dryden, Life 
of Wyndham, &c., and edited an edition of Shakspeare, which has now 
very little value.^ 



1 This is a work of fiction describing the 
prevalent manners and customs of England, 
under the name of a supposed Hindoo; the 
idea being taken, perhaps, from the Athenian 
Letters of the Earl of Hardwicke, Rev. Dr. 
Ilooke, and others. 

8 " A distant and a deadly shore 
Has Leyden's cold remains." 

Scott : Lord of the Isles. 



3 " He poured forth several border ballads, 
vrhich won the hearts of Lewis and Scott." — 

MOIR. 

* " Skaith," injury, damage, calamity. 

8 Dr. Symmons, a recent biographer of Shak- 
speare, says, " No one has inflicted such crtiel 
woimds on the text of Shakspeare as the as- 
suming dulness of Malone.' 



74 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



^ercy, Thomas, Bishop of Dromore (1728-1811), will ever be gratefully 
remembered for his charming selection, The Reliques of English Poetry, 
made up of some of the best ballads and lyrical pieces of ancient and 
modern poetry.^ He was also a poet himself, as his ballad, Nanny, wilt 
thou go with me ? and The Hermit of Warkworth, fully testify. 

Tla/yfair, Jb/m (1748-1819), Professor of Natural Philosophy in the 
University of Edinburgh. Elements of Geometry, 1794 ; Philosophical Works, 
with a 3Iemoir by Francis Jeffrey, 4 vols., 1822. "His works," says 
Dugald Stewart, *' exhibit a combination of the soundest philosophy and 
of the profoundest science, with powers of eloquence and skill in com- 
position, which place the author in the first rank of our classic authors." 

Saj'ers, I^}^a7ik (1763-1817), was a physician of Norwich. He wrote 
Dramatic Sketches of the Ancient Northern Mythology, 1790 ; Disquisitions 
Metaphysical and Literary, 1793 ; Poetical Works, Disquisitions on Poetry, 
with Life by W. Taylor, 1830. 

Sharp, Granrilte (1735-1813), the great philanthropist, was the son of 
Rev. Thomas Sharp, Archdeacon of Northumberland. He early obtained 
a situation in the Ordnance office, devoting all his leisure time to the 
study of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages. In 1765, a circum- 
stance occurred that gave a new direction to his life. A man by the 
name of Lisle had brought to England from Barbadoes, an African 
named Jonathan Strong, whom he claimed as his slave. The cruel 
treatment the man received at the hands of his brutal master (for slavery, 
all the world over, makes men brutal, and women worse ^) having come 
to the knowledge of Mr. Sharp, he exerted all his efforts to get him 
released, and finally succeeded. But he saw that the case of poor Strong 
was but one of many similar instances that then existed, and he resolved 
to devote his whole powers to the abolition of that system of oppression 
that was productive of so much wrong and misery. Of course, at that 
time he had to encounter bitter opposition, and often was his life in 
danger; but he never shrank from his duty. Case after case he had 
brought before the judges, until finally, in the great case of Somerset, 
1772, it was declared, by a full bench, that the moment a slave set hia 
foot upon the soil of England he was free. Hence the lines of Cowper, — 

" Slaves cannot breathe in England : if their Inngs 
Keceive our air, that moment they are free; 
They touch our country, and their shackles fall." 

After this, ^Mr. Sharp devoted his energies to the abolition of slavery and of 
the slave-trade all over the world, and some horrible instances of cruelty 
that had occurred ^ drew towards him the sympathies of the wise and the 
good. He was the means, about 1787, of founding the colony of free 
blacks at Sierra Leone. In 1804 he was elected the first President of 
the "British and Foreign Bible Society," which post he held till his 
death, July 6, 1813. 

As a scholar, Mr. Sharp took a high rank. His chief works are — A 



i"The influence of Percy's collection was 
general and extensive, as is evident in the 
writings of many cotemporary authors. It 
gave the first impulse to the genius of Sir 
Walter Scott, and it may be seen in the writings 
of Coleridge and Wordsworth." — Chambers's 
English Literature. 

2 It is worthy of note that in our great slave- 
holders' rebellion (1861-1865) the women often 
showed a more bitter spirit and were guilty 
of T^orp revolting practices than the men. 



3 For instance, the master of the slave-ship 
" Zong," having a large number of his slaves 
sick, told his officers that "if they died ou 
board, the loss would fall on the owners of 
the ship; but if they were thrown alive into 
the sea, the loss would fall upon the under- 
writers." Accordingly, they proceeded to their 
horrid work, and threw overboard one hun- 
dred AND THIETY-TWO HUMAN BEINGS ALIVE! 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



76 



Representation of the Injustice and Danger of tolerating Slavery in England, 
1769 ; Inquiry into the Principles of Villanage, 1770 ; A Declaration of the 
People^ s Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature,^ 1774 ; On the Pro- 
nunciation of the English Tongue ; On the Use of the Definite Article in the 
New Testament; Remarks on several Important Prophecies; Remarks on 
Duelling ; The Law of Retribution, or a Serious Warning to Great Britain 
and her Qjlonies, founded on God's Temporal Vengeance against Tyrants, 
Slaveholders, &c. ; and he published numerous other learned and curious 
tracts. But it is as a philanthropist that he will ever be held in grateful 
remembrance.^ 

Sherida7i, 'Rrc7iard 'Brinsley, distinguished as a statesman, wit, and 
dramatist, was born in Dublin in 1751. At twenty-four he published 
The Rivals, in which Captain Absolute and Mrs. Malaprop are well- 
known characters. But his greatest work was The School for Scandal, 
published in 1777, which is regarded as one of the finest comedies in the 
English language. He also wrote The Duenna, an opera ; The Critic, a 
witty after-piece, &c. The political scene in which he so distinguished 
himself, by a speech of unsurpassed eloquence, was the impeachment of 
Warren Hastings. He died in 1816. For a full account of this gifted 
but wayward genius, read his Life, by Thomas Moore. His Speeches have 
been published, in 5 vols. 8vo. 

TannahlU, ^oberi^, Scotch poet, born at Paisley, 1774, was in early life 
a weaver. His Scottish songs, among which may be named Gloomy 
Winter's noiv awa\ and Jessie, the Flower o' Dumblane, are remarkable for 
sweetness and power, and are scarcely inferior to some of Burns's. He 
died in 1810. 

Tooke, jroh7i JSTor^ie, a lawyer and philologist (1736-1812), was dis- 
tinguished in his day as a political writer and scholar. In 1794 he was 
tried for high treason, accused of conspiring with the French Convention 
to overthrow the English Constitution. He was defended by Lord 
Erskine, and acquitted. His great etymological work — and an admirable 
one it is — is entitled Epea Pteroenta,^ or the Diversions of Purley.^ 

yratson, Richard (XlV-im^), Bishop of Llandaff, did much for the 
cause of religion in his replies to Gibbon and Paine, pul^lishing in 
answer to the attacks of the former, An Apology for Christianity, and in 
answer to the latter. An Apology for the Bible. These works are still, and 
ever will be, highly valued. 



1 In this, as in many other things, he was 
like our own Christian statesman, Charles 
Sumner, — a half-century before his time. 

2 A part of the inscription upon his monu- 
ment at Westminster Abbey reads thus, and 
never was a monumental inscription more 
truthful : — "IIis whole socl was in harmony 

WITH THE SACRED STRAIN, — GLORY TO GOD IN THE 
HIGHEST, ON EARTH PEACE, AND GOOD WILL TO- 



WARDS MEN," See his Memoirs, by Prince Hoaro, 
London, 1820. 

3 '• "Winged Words." 

4 This name is from a wealthy client, Mr. 
Tooke, of Purley, from whom our autlior in- 
herited a large fortune, and whose name he 
afterwards assumed. Purley was a small parish 
in Berkshire. 



76 BROWN. 



®Iurd l^rad^* 



THOMAS BROWN, 1778-1820. 

Thomas Brown, the eminent metaphysician, was born at Kirkmabreck,^ in 
Scotland, and was the youngest son of the Eev. Samuel Brown, minister of 
the parish. Having lost his father when quite young, he was placed by his 
maternal uncle, from his seventh to his fourteenth year, at different schools 
near London, in all of which he made great progress in classical literature. 
Upon the death of his uncle in 1792, he returned to his mother's house in Edin- 
burgh, and entered as a student in the University. His attention was at once 
directed to metaphysical studies by Dugald Stewart's Elements of the Philosophy 
of the Human Mind being put into his hands, and the next winter he attended 
Mr. Stewart's class. Here he immediately distinguished himself by his acute 
and profound observations upon this subject, and a friendship commenced 
between the illustrious teacher and his no less illustrious pupil, which con- 
tinued through life. 

In 1798 he published Observations on the Zoonomia of Dr. Darrein, which was 
considered a remarkable production for one so young. In 1803, having at- 
tended the usual medical course, he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine. 
In the same year he brought out the first edition of his poems, in two 
volumes, which exhibit marks of an original mind and a refined taste. His 
next publication was an examination of the principles of Mr. Hume respect- 
ing causation, which Sir James Mackintosh pronounced the finest model in 
mental philosophy sfnce Berkeley and Hume. A second edition was pub- 
lished in 1806, and a third in 1818 so enlarged as to be almost a new work, 
under the title of An Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. 

Up to the year 1808, Dr. Brown continued the practice of medicine in Edin- 
burgh, though it was not a calling suited to his taste and studies. This year 
a circumstance occurred that placed him in a situation that entirely harmo- 
nized with his inclinations. The health of Professor Stewart had been declining 
for some time, and he applied to Dr. Brown to supply his place for a short 
period, with lectures of his own composition. He did so, and gave universal 
satisfaction; and in 1810 he was, agreeably to Mr. Stewart's wishes, appointed 
Professor of Moral Philosophy, in conjunction with him. He entered upon 
his duties with great ardor and untiring industry, and prepared for his stu- 
dents that series of lectures on which his fame rests. In the summer of 1814 
he published anonymously his poem entitled The Paradise of Coquettes, 
which met with a very favorable reception; and in the next year two 
others. The Wanderer of Norway and The Bower of Spring. In the autumn 
of 1818 he commenced his text-book for the benefit of his students. He was 
then in good health; but in December he became indisposed, and during the 
summer recess of the next year his health seemed evidently to be failing. 
"When he again met his class in the autumn, his lecture unfortunately happened 
to be one which he was never able to deliver without being much moved; and, 

1 About eighty miles southwest of Edinburgh, near Sol way Frith. 



BROWN. 77 

from the manner in which he recited the very aiFecting lines from Beattie'a 
Mermit, it was conceived by many that the emotion he displayed arose from 
a foreboding of his own apj^roaching dissolution : — 

" 'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more ; 

I mourn, but, ye Avoodlands, I mourn not for you ; 
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, 

Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew : 
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn : 

Kind Nature tlie emlirj^o blossom will save; 
But when sliiill Spring visit the mouldering urn ? 

Oh, wlien shall it dawn on the night of the gi'ave?" 

This was the last lecture he ever delivered. Day after day he became 
•weaker, and he died on the 2d of April, 1820. 

The most prominent features of Dr. Brown's character were gentleness, 
kindness, and delicacy of mind, united with great independence of spirit, a 
strong love of liberty, and an ardent desire for the diffusion of knowledge, 
virtue, and happiness among mankind. The predominating quality of his 
intellectual character was, unquestionably, his power of analysis, in which 
he had few equals. In his prose he has shown great powers of eloquence. 
His poetry has never been popular, though it contains very many choice 
passages. His character as a philosopher will rest chiefly upon his Lectures 
on the PhUosophij of the Human Mind, which were published in two volumes 
after his death. A more instructive and interesting book can hardly be found 
in the compass of English literature. It is full of passages of exquisite beauty 
and lofty eloquence. 

THE POWER OF HABIT. 

That the frequent repetition of any action increases the tend- 
ency to it, all of you must have experienced in yourselves, in 
innumerable cases, of little importance, perhaps, but sufficiently 
indicative of the influence ; and there are few of you, probably, 
who have not had an opportunity of remarking in others the 
fatal power of habits of a very different kind. In the corruption 
of a great city it is scarcely possible to look around, without per- 
ceiving some warning example of that blasting and deadening 
influence, before which every thing that was generous and bene- 
volent in the heart has withered, while every thing which was 
noxious has flourished with more rapid maturity; like those 
plants which can extend their roots, indeed, even in a pure soil, 
and fling out a few leaves amid balmy airs and odors, but which 
burst out in all their luxuriance only from a soil that is fed with 
constant putrescency, and in an atmosphere w^iich it is poison 
to inhale. It is not vice — not cold and insensible and contented 
vice, that has never known any better feelings — which we view 
with melancholy regret. It is virtue — at least what once was 
virtue — that has yielded progressively and silently to an influ- 
ence scarcely perceived, till it has become the very thing which 
it abhorred. Nothing can be more just than the picture of this 
sad progress, described in the well-known lines of Pope : — 

7*- 



78 BROWN. 

" Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, 
That, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
Yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."^ 

In the slow progress of some insidious disease, which is scarcely 
regarded by its cheerful and unconscious victim, it is mournful to 
mark the smile of gayety as it plays over that very bloom, which 
is not the freshness of health, but the flushing of approaching 
mortality, amid studies perhaps just opening into intellectual ex- 
cellence, and hopes and plans of generous ambition that are 
never to be fulfilled. But how much more painful is it to behold 
that equally insidious and far more desolating progress with 
which guilty passion steals upon the heart, — when there is still 
sufficient virtue to feel remorse, and to sigh at the remembrance 
of purer years, but not sufficient to throw off the guilt which is 
felt to be oppressive, and to return to that purity in which it 
would again, in its better moments, gladly take shelter, if only 
it had energy to vanquish the almost irresistible habits that 
would tear it back ! 

" Crimes lead to crimes, and link so straight, 
What first was accident at last is fate; 
The unhappy servant sinks into a slave, 
And virtue's last sad strugglings cannot save." — Mallet. 

"VVe must not conceive, hoAvever, that habit is powerful only in 
strengthening what is evil ; though it is this sort of operation 
which, of course, forces itself more upon our observation and 
memory, — like the noontide darkness of the tempest, that is 
remembered when the calm and the sunshine and the gentle 
shower are forgotten. There can be no question that the same 
principle which confirms and aggravates what is evil strengthens 
and cherishes also what is good. The virtuous, indeed, do not 
require the influence of habitual benevolence or devotion to 
force them, as it were, to new acts of kindness to man, or to new 
sentiments of gratitude to God. But the temptations, to which 
even virtue might sometimes be in danger of yielding in the 
commencement of its delightful progress, become powerless and 
free from peril when that progress is more advanced. There are 
spirits which, even on earth, are elevated above that little scene 
of mortal ambition with which their benevolent wishes for the 
sufferers there are the single tie that connects them still. All 
with them is serenity ; the darkness and the storm are beneath 
them. They have only to look down, with generous sympathy, 
on those who have not yet risen so high ; and to look up, with 
gratitude, to that heaven which is above their head, and which 
is almost opening to receive them. — Lecture xliii. 

1 Essay on Man, Ep. II. v. 217-22Q. 



KEATS. 79 

Of Dr. Brown's poetry, The Paradise of Coquettes has been by far the most 
popular, though it is now little read: yet the Edinburgh Revicio^ says of it, "It 
is by far the best and most brilliant imitation of Pope that has appeared since 
the time of that great writer." The following, the opening of the third canto, 
will give some idea of its style and character. It is in a rather ambiguous tone, 
somewhat between raillery, sarcasm, and an apology for 

THE CHANG EFULNESS OF WOMAN. 

Ye watchful sprites, Avho make e'en man your care, 

And sure more gladly hover o'er the fair, 

Who grave on adamant all changeless things, 

The smiles of courtiers and the frowns of kings ! 

Say to what softer texture ye impart 

The quick resolves of woman's trusting heart ; 

Joys of a moment, Avishes of an hour, 

The short eternity of Passion's power, 

Breathed in vain oaths that pledge with generous zeal 

E'en more of fondness than they e'er shall feel, 

Light fleeting vows that never reach above, 

And all the guileless changefulness of love ! 

Is summer's leaf the record ? Does it last 

Till withering autumn blot it with his blast? 

Or, frailer still, to fade ere ocean's ebb. 

Graved on some filmy insect's thinnest web, 

Some day-fly's wing that dies and ne'er has slept, 

Lives the light vow scarce longer than 'tis kept ? 

Ah, call not perfidy her fickle choice ! 

Ah, find not falsehood in an angel's voice ! 

True to one word, and constant to one aim. 

Let man's hard soul be stubborn as his frame ; 

But leave sweet woman's form and mind at will 

To bend and vary and be graceful still. 



JOHN KEATS, 1795-18 W. 

John Keats was born in London, October 29, 1795. At fifteen he was appren- 
ticed to a surgeon ; but, being richly endowed by nature with the poetical 
faculty, he devoted most of his time to the cultivation of letters. He was early 
introduced to Leigh Hunt, who was struck with the exuberance of the speci- 
mens of his genuine, though young poetry that were laid before him; and ha 
at once introduced him to the public. In 1817, Keats published a volume con- 
taining his juvenile poetry, and, shortly after, his long poem Endymion, a Poetic 
Romance, which, defective though it was in many parts, evinced great, but undis- 
ciplined powers of imagination. It was criticized in a short, though very severe 
article by John Wilson Croker, in the Quarterly Review (xix. 204); and such 
Avas its effect upon the sensitiveness of the youthful poet as to embitter his 
whole future existence. "Its first effects," says Shelley, "are described to me 

1 Vol. xxiv. p. 397. 



80 



KEATS. 



to have resembled insanity; and it was by assiduous watching that he was 
restrained from effecting purposes of suicide. The agony of his sufferings at 
length produced the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs, and the usual pro- 
cess of consumption appears to have begun." To recover his health, Keats 
travelled to Eome, where he died on the 27th of December, 1820, having pre- 
viously published another volume of poems, containing Lamia, Isabella, The 
Eve of St. Agnes, and Hyperion. 

Every one must admit that Keats was endowed by nature with the poetical 
faculty in a high degree, and that all he has written is stamped with originality 
and power. But his imagination is so luxuriant, his writings are so crowded 
v/ith images, and his transitions from thought to thought so rapid and at times 
so obscure, that he never can become a popular poet. It has been well said 
that his writings are adapted chiefly to those who are of a poetical tempera- 
ment themselves, and who have an imagination capable of following, if not 
of creating. To such they are stimulating, suggestive, and, it may be, delight- 
ful. But to those readers who have a desire for poetry as a pleasant form of 
some clear and connected subject, and who prefer authors that anticipate their 
imagination rather than call it into violent action, Keats's poems will have, 
comparatively, few charms.^ 

ADDRESS TO AUTUMN. 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun, 
Conspii'ing with him liow to load and bless 

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run ; 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core ; 
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 

With a sweet kernel ; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they tliink warm days will never cease. 

For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft beneath thy store ? 

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary-floor. 

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind. 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers ; 

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
Steady thy laden head across a brook ; 
Or by a cider-press, with patient look. 

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. 



1 " That the poetry of Keats is full of beau- 
ties, that it evinces a most remarkable rich- 
ness and sensitiveness of fancy and suggestive- 
ness of imagination, that it contains passages 
of a certain rough sublimity seemingly above 
its general tone, and that it occasionally 
makes the ' sense of satisfaction ache with the 
unreachable delicacy of its epithets,' is cheer- 
fully acknowledged by every one who reads 
poetry without having his fancy and imagina- 
tion shut by prejudice; but that it evinces the 
force aud fire, the depth, the grandeur^ or the 



comprehensiveness, of a great nature, that it 
displays powers — we will not say, like tliose 
of Milton, but — like those of either of the great 
poets of the nineteenth century, is a dogma 
to which neither the life nor the writings 
of Keats afford any adequate support." — 
Whipple's Essays, i. p. 354. 

" In the soul of Keats, if ever in a human 
soul at all, there was a portion of the reat 
poetic essence." — Masson's Essays, Biography. 
cal and Critical. 



KEATS. 



81 



"Where are the songs of Spring ? Ay, where are they ? 

Think not of them : thou hast thy music too, — 
While barred clouds bloom the soft -dying day, 

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 

Among the river-sallows borne aloft, 
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies ; 

And full-grown lambs bleat loud from hilly bourn, 
Hedge-crickets sing : and now, with treble soft, 
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, 

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.^ 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains, 

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk : 
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot. 
But being too happy in thy happiness. 
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, 
In some melodious plot 
Of beechen green and shadoAvs numberless, 
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 

Oh for a draught of vintage, that hath been 

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, 
Tasting of Flora and the country green. 

Dance and Provencal song and sunburnt mirth I 
Oh for a beaker full of the warm south, 
Full of the true, the blushful Ilippocrene, 
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 
And purple-stained mouth ; 
That I might drink and leave the world unseen, 
And with thee fade away into the forest dim : 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 

What thou among the leaves hast never known. 
The weariness, the fever, and the fret 

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ; 
Where palsy shakes a fcAv, sad, last gray hairs. 

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ; 
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 
And leaden-eyed despairs ; 
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes. 
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 

Away ! away ! for I will fly to thee. 

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 

But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards : 

Already with thee ! tender is the night. 

And haply the queen-moon is on her throne, 
Cluster'd around by all her starry fays ; 



1 The Ode to a Nightingale is one of great 
beauty, and may serve as a companion to 
Shelley's Skylark. "It was written." says 
Leigh Hunt, " in a house at the foot of High- 



gate Hill, on the border of the fields looking 
towards Hampstead. The poet had tlien hia 
mortal illness upon him, and knew it. Never 
was the voice of death sweeter." 



82 KEATS. 

But here there is no light, 
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 

Through verdurous blooms and winding mossy ways. 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 

Wherewith the seasonable month endows 

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree v/ild ; 

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ; 

Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves ; 

And mid-May's eldest child. 

The coming musk-rose, full of dcAvy wine. 

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 

Darkling I listen ; and for many a time 

I have been half in love witb easeful Death, 
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, 

To take into the air my quiet breath ; 
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 
To cease upon the midnight with no pain. 
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
In such an ecstasy ! 
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain, — 
To thy high requiem become a sod. 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird ! 

No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

In ancient days by emperor and clown : 
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path 

Through the sad heart of Euth, when, sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 
The same that ofttimes hath 
Charm'd magic casements, opening on tlie foam 
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 

Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell 

To toll me back from thee to my sole self! 
Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades 
Past the near meadows, over the still stream. 
Up the hillside ; and now 'tis buried deep 
In the next valley-glades : 
Was it a vision, or a M^aking dream ? 

Fled is that music : — do I wake, or sleep ? 

PERMANENCE OF BEAUTY.^ 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever ; 

Its loveliness increases ; it will never 

Pass into nothingness, but still will keep 

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 

Therefore on every morrow are we wreathing 

1 The Opening of Endymion. 



KEATS. 88 

A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarken'd Avays 
Made for our searching : yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, " 
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep ; and such are dafibdils, 
^Vith the green world they live in ; and clear rills. 
That for themselves a cooling covert make 
'Gainst the hot season ; the nr'd-forest brake, 
Rich Avitli a sprinkling of fair rausk-rose blooms : 
And such, too, is the grandeur of the dooms 
AVe have imagined for the mighty dead ; 
All lovely tales that we have heard or read : 
An endless fountain of immoi-tal drink, 
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 

Nor do we merely feel these essences 
For one short hour ; no, even as the trees 
That whisper round a temple become soon 
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon. 
The passion poesy, glories infinite. 
Haunt us till they become a cheering light 
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, 
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, 
They always must be with us, or we die. 

SATURN AND THEA.^ 
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale 
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, 
Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, 
Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone. 
Still as the silence round about his lair ; 
Forest on forest hung about his head 
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there. 
Not so much life as on a summer's day 
Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass. 
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. 
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more 
By reason of his fallen divinity 
Spreading a shade : the Naiad 'mid her reeds 
Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips. 

Along the margin sand large footmarks went 
No farther than to where his feet had strayed, 
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground 
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, 
Unsceptred ; and his realmless eyes were closed ; 
While his bowed head seemed listening to the earthj 
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet. 

It seemed no force could wake him from his place ; 
But there came one, who with a kindred hand 
Touched his wide shoulders, after bending low 

l"What easy, finished, statuesque beauty I picture of Saturn and f/iea /" — Chambers's 
and classic expression are displayed in this | Cyc. Evg. Lit. 



S%4 KEATS. 

With reverence, though to one who knew it not. 

She was a goddess of the infant world ; 

By her in stature the tall Amazon 

Had stood a pigmy's height : she would have ta'en 

Achilles by the hair, and bent his neck, 

Or with a finger stayed Ixion's wheel. 

Her face was large as that of Memphian sphynx, 

Pedestal' d haply in a palace court, 

"When sages looked to Egypt for their lore. 

But, oh, how unlike marble Avas that face ! 

How beautiful, if sorrow had not made 

Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self! 

There was a listening fear in her regard, 

As if calamity had but begun ; 

As if the vanward clouds of evil days 

Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear 

Was, with its stored thunder, laboring up. 

One hand she pressed upon that aching spot 

Where beats the human heart, as if just there, 

Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain ; 

The other upon Saturn's bended neck 

She laid, and to the level of his ear 

Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake 

In solemn tenor and deep organ tone ; 

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue 

Would come in these like accents, — oh, how frail, 

To that large utterance of the early gods ! — 

" Saturn, look up ! though wherefore, poor old king ? 

I have no comfort for thee, no, not one : 

I cannot say, * Oh, wherefore sleepest thou ?' 

For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth 

Knows thee not thus afflicted for a god ; 

And ocean too, with all its solemn noise, 

Has from thy sceptre passed, and all the air 

Is emptied of thine hoary majesty. 

Thy thunder, conscious of the new command, 

Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house ; 

And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands 

Scorches and burns our once serene domain. 

O aching time ! O moments big as years ! 

All, as ye pass, swell out the monstrous truth, 

And press it so upon our weary griefs 

That unbelief has not a space to breathe. 

Saturn, sleep on ! Oh, thoughtless, why did I 

Tlius violate thy slumbrous solitude ? 

Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes ? 

Saturn, sleep on ! while at thy feet I weep." 

As when, upon a tranced summer-night, 
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, 
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, 
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir. 
Save from one gradual solitary gust 
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, 
As if the ebbing air had but one wave ; 
So came these words and went. 



KNOX. 



85 



VIGESIMUS KNOX, 1752-1821. 

VicESiMtTS Knox, son of the Rev. Vicesimus Knox, was born on the 8th of 
December, 1752. After completing the usual course of preparatory study, he 
entered St. John's College, Oxford. While here, and before he took his bache- 
lor's degree, he wrote and published anonymously many of those Essays 
which have chiefly contributed to his fame. They were very much admired, 
and a second edition was soon called for, which was greatly enlarged and to 
which he prefixed his name, under the title of Essays, Moral and Literary. 
These essays are written in a forcible and elegant style, formed on the purest 
classical models, and contain very valuable directions for the cultivation of 
the understanding, and the conduct of life; and what recommends them still 
more is the rich fund of classical and miscellaneous entertainment they 
afibrd.i 

From college, after having regularly taken the degi-ees of bachelor and 
master of arts, Mr. Knox was elected, in 1778, to succeed his father as head- 
master of Tunbridge School. He held this post of honor and usefulness for 
thirty-three years, or till 1811, when he in turn was succeeded by his son. 
His next publication was a work entitled Liberal Education, or a Practical 
Treatise on the Methods of acquiring Useful and Polite Learning. This was well 
received, was soon republished in our country, and was translated into the 
French. In 1788 he published a series of miscellaneous papers, under the 
title of Winter Evenings, which, though not equal, on the whole, to the Essays, 
abound in fine writing and excellent moral instruction. After The Winter 
Evenings appeared Letters to a Young Nobleman; Christian Philosophy, in two 
vols. ; Considerations on the Lord's Supper, in one vol. ; and a pamphlet On the 
National Lnportance of Classical Education. He also published, for the use 
of his school, expurgated editions of Horace and Juvenal, and that series of 
selections fi'om the works of the best English authors, well known as Elegant 
Extracts and Elegant Epistles. After a life of great usefulness and industry, 
he died at Tunbridge, on the 6th of September, 1821. His literary reputation 
was deservedly great; but, what is still better, his whole character was a 
model of Christian virtue, and all his works are calculated to improve the 
heart as well as inform the mind. 

ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 

I am not in the number of those politicians who estimate na- 
tional good merely by extent of territory, richness of revenue, 
and commercial importance. I rather think that pure religion, 
good morals, fine taste, solid literature, and all those things 
which, while they contribute to elevate human nature, contribute 



1 " Few publications have been more popu- 
lar, and more deservedly so, than these in- 
structive Essays, which have passed through 
sixteen editions. The subjects on which Dr. 
Knox has expatiated in these volumes are 
numerous and well chosen, and they uni- 
formly possess a direct tendency either to im- 
prove the head or amend the heart. To per- 



sons of every description, but especially to 
young persons, the essays of our author are 
invaluable : their first praise is, that they re- 
commend, in a most fascinating manner, all 
that is good and great; and, secondly, they 
are in a high degree calculated to form the 
taste and excite a spirit of literary enthu- 
siasm." — Drake's Essays, vol. v. 365. 



8^" 86 KNOX. 

also to render private life dignified and comfortable, constitute 
that true national good to which politics, war, and commerce are 
but subordinate and instrumental. Indeed, one cannot always 
say so much in their praise ; for, after all the noise which they 
make in the world, they are often injurious to every thing for 
which society appears, in the eye of reason, to have been origin- 
ally instituted. 

Under this conviction, I cannot help thinking that such writers 
as an Addison and a Steele have caused a greater degree of 
national good than a Marlborough and a Walpole. They have 
successfully recommended such qualities as adorn human nature, 
and such as tend also, in their direct consequences, to give 
grandeur and stability to empire. For, in truth, it is personal 
merit and private virtue which can alone preserve a free country 
in a prosperous state and indeed render its prosperity desirable. 
How are men really the better for national 2:)rosperity when, as 
a nation grows rich, its morals are corrupted, mutual confidence 
lost, and debauchery and excess of all kinds pursued with such 
general and unceasing ardor as seduces the mind to a state of 
abject slavery and impotence? If I am born in a country where 
my mind and body are almost sure to be corrupted by the influ- 
ence of universal examjDle, and my soul deadened in all its 
nobler energies, what avails it that the country extends its do- 
minion beyond the Atlantic and the Ganges? It had been 
better for me that I had not been born, than born in such a 
country. 

Moralists, therefore, who have the art to convey their instruction 
successfully, are the most valuable patriots and the truest bene- 
factors to their country. And among these I place in the highest 
rank, because of the more extensive diffusion of their labors, the 
successful writers of periodical lucubrations. 

Among these, the Tatler is t]ie first in the order of time who 
will claim attention. For those which preceded were entirely 
political and controversial, and soon sunk into oblivion when the 
violence of party which produced them had subsided. But the 
general purpose of the Tatler, as Steele himself declares, was to 
expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, 
vanity, and ostentation, and to recommend a general simplicity 
in our dress, discourse, and behavior. 

The general state of conversation and of literary improvement 
among those w^ho called themselves gentlemen, at the time in 
which the Tatler was written, was low and contemptible. The 
men who, from their rank, fortune, and appearance, claimed the 
title of gentlemen, affected a contempt for learning, and seemed 
to consider ignorance as a mark of gentility. The Tatler gra- 
dually opened their understandings, and furnished matter for im- 
proving conversation. 



KNOX. 87 

Addison, who had appeared with peculiar lustre in the Tatler, 
was to shine again in the Spectator with still brighter and more 
permanent glory. The great charm of his diction, which has 
delighted readers of every class, appears to me to be a certain 
natural sweetness, ease, and delicacy, which no affectation can 
attain. Truths of all kinds — the sublime and the familiar, the 
serious and the comic — are taught in that peculiar style which 
raises in the mind a placid and equable flow of emotions, — 
that placidness and equability which are in a j^articular manner 
adapted to give permanency to all our pleasurable feelings. A 
work which warms our passions, and hurries us on with the rapid 
vehemence of its style, may be read once or twice with pleasure; 
but it is the more tranquil style which is most frequently in uni- 
son with our minds, and which, therefore, on the tenth repetition, 
as Horace says, will afford fresh pleasure. Addison rejected that 
levity and medley of matter which often appeared disadvantage- 
ously in a single paper of the Tatler, and usually wrote regular 
treatises on the most important and most interesting subjects of 
taste and morality. Such subjects will never be out of date; 
but the strictures on the dresses and diversions of the times, 
whatever merit they possessed, could not have rendered the work 
immortal. 

With respect to the Rambler, if I have prejudices concerning 
it, they are all in its favor. I read it at a very early age with 
delight, and, I hope, with improvement. Every thing laudable 
and useful in the conduct of life is recommended in it, often in a 
new manner, and always with energy, and with a dignity which 
commands attention. When I consider it with a view to its 
effects on the generality of the people, on those who stand most 
in need of this mode of instruction, it appears greatly inferior to 
the easy and natural Spectator. And, indeed, with all my pre- 
possessions in favor of this writer, I cannot but agree with the 
opinion of the public which has condemned in his style an afiected 
appearance of pomposity. 

The Adventurer is an imitation of the Rambler. It is written 
with remarkable spirit, and with the benevolent design of pro- 
moting all that is good and amiable. The stories make a very 
conspicuous figure in this work, and tend to diffuse its influence 
among those readers who might probably have been deterred 
from reading it had it consisted only of didactic discourses writ- 
ten in a style approaching to the lexiphantic. Great, indeed, are 
its merits in every view; but I cannot discover in the diction 
the sweetness and the delicacy of Addison. 

The World is written in a style different from all the preceding. 
There is a certain gayety and gentility diftused over it which 
gives it a peculiar grace when considered only as a book of 
amusement. That it inculcates morality with any peculiar force, 



88 KNOX. 

cannot be said. But it gives many valuable instructions without 
assuming the solemn air of a severe moralist. 

The Connoisseur abounds in wit and a very pleasant species 
of humor. The book, however, is rather diverting than im- 
proving; yet, under the form of irony, many useful truths are 
conveyed with great success. There is no elevation of senti- 
ment, and no sublime discourses on religion and morality ; but 
there is a great deal of good sense expressed Avith good-humored 
drollery. The authors were by nature possessed of wit, and had 
acquired a very considerable knowledge of the classics. 

Every one of these works is calculated to promote good sense 
and virtue ; and, whatever may be the defects of each, the variety 
of their manners is well suited to the variety of dispositions and of 
tastes which occur in the mass of mankind. — Essays, No. XXVIII. 

ON SIMPLICITY OF STYLE. 

Food that gives the liveliest pleasure on the first taste fre- 
quently disgusts on repetition ; and those things which please the 
palate without satiety are such as agitate but moderately, and 
perhaps originally caused a disagreeable sensation. Mental food 
is also found by experience to nourish most and delight the 
longest when it is not lusciously sweet. Profuse ornament and 
unnecessary graces, though they may transport the reader on ^ a 
first perusal, commonly occasion a kind af intellectual surfeit, 
which prevents a second. 

Tlie Bible, the Iliad, and Shakspeare's works^ are allowed to be 
the sublimest books that the world can exhibit. They are also 
truly simple ; and the reader is the more affected by their indis- 
putable sublimity, because his attention is not wearied by inef- 
fectual attempts at it. He who is acquainted with Longinus 
will remember that the instances adduced by that great pattern 
of the excellence he describes, are not remarkable for a glaring 
or a pompous style, but derive their claim to sublimity from a 
noble energy of thought, modestly set off by a proper ex- 
pression. 

No author has been more universally approved than Xenophon. 
Yet his writings display no appearance of splendor or majesty; 
nothing elevated or adorned with figures ; no affectation of super- 
fluous ornament. His merit is an unaffected sweetness which no 
affectation can obtain. The graces seem to have conspired to 
form the becoming texture of his composition. And yet per- 
haps a common reader would neglect him, because the easy and 
natural air of his narrative rouses no violent emotion. More 
refined understandings peruse him with delight ; and Cicero has 



1 He should have added Milton, and placed him next to the Bible, 



SHELLEY. 89 

recorded that Scipio, when once he had opened the books of 
Xenophon, wouhl with difficulty be prevailed with to close them. 
His style, says the same great orator and critic, is sweeter than 
honey, and the IMiises themselves seem to have spoken from his 
mouth. 

To write in a plain style appears easy in theory ; but how few 
in comparison have avoided the fault of unnecessary and false 
ornament ! The greater part seem to have mistaken unwieldy 
corpulence for robust vigor, and to have despised the temperate 
habit of sound health as meagreness. The taste for finery is 
more general than for symmetrical beauty and chaste elegance; 
and many, like Nero, would not be content till they should have 
spoiled, by gilding it, the statue of a Lysippus. — Essays, No. XV. 



PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY, 1792-1822. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley, called by a loving disciple "the inaugurator of our 
last and greatest era of English poetry," was born at Field Place, near Hors- 
ham, in Sussex. August 4, 1792. In his early youth the sweep and intensity 
of his imagination were conspicuous, and he habitually withdrew himself from 
the rough plays of his fellows. When thirteen he was sent to Eton, where he 
developed the characteristic trait that moulded his whole future life, — in- 
vincible hatred of tyranny. That hateful system of " fagging," so prevalent 
in the English schools, was then in full force, and Shelley, for refusing to 
submit to its tyrannical dictation, was persecuted by every device of ingenious 
despotism. This he bore nobly; for the boy's nature, though shrinking and 
sensitive, was full of nervous vigor and manly self-reliance j so that he was 
not content with simply bearing all jeers and insults, but challenged and 
defied them ; often defending the weak by the interposition of himself. 

In 1810 Shelley was entered at University College, Oxford, where he studied 
and wrote incessantly, taking the greatest delight in disputation, and in com- 
bating received opinions, and, in his second year there, published a pamphlet 
questioning the arguments by which the existence of God was maintained. It 
was not so much an avowal of confirmed infidel opinions, as it was a challenge 
to discussion, and implied a desire to attain better reasoning on the side of the 
general belief of mankind, rather than a wish to overthrow the grounds of 
that belief. For this he was summoned before the master and two or three 
fellows of his college, and formally expelled. A more unwise course could 
hardly have been taken to meet the arguments of an earnest and inquiring 
mind by the mere authority of force.. Had these men treated the youthful 
poet kindly, and set apart a day when the great questions he had started would 
be fully and freely discussed, they might have won him over to sound evan- 
gelical truth, and j^erhaps made him her eloquent champion through life. As 
it was, by their treatment and by the cruel course pursued by an unsympathetic 
father, who forbade him ever to revisit his home, he was di'iven still farther 
from religion, and made to consider the Christian system as a form of tyranny, 
and its professors as bigots and despots. 

8* 



90 SHELLEY. 

In 1811 Shelley made a runaway-match with a Miss Harriet Westbrooke, the 
daughter of a retired hotel-keeper. He was attracted to her by her personal 
charms; but neither her birth, education, nor character adapted her to any 
enduring sympathy with her husband's imaginative and intellectual nature ; 
and after three years the mutual incompatibility of the ill-joined pair pro- 
duced a separation. She returned to her father with her two children, and 
two years afterwards she destroyed herself; and, though it was from causes not 
connected immediately with him, so far as we can learn, this suicide cast a 
shadow over Shelley's subsequent life. He married, however, again, and this 
time more hapj^ily. Mary Wollstonecraft, the daughter of William Godwin, 
linked her fate with his, and thenceforward till his death he found refuge 
from his troubles and persecutions in his wife's warm love and genuine 
sympathy. 

Shelley spent two or three years in travelling on the Continent, and in Italy 
formed intimate friendships with Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Lord Byron. His 
productions up to this time had been Queen Mab,^ a miniature poem published 
at the age of eighteen; Alastor ; the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty ; and the Hymn 
to Mont Blanc. In 1817, when Shelley had returned to England to claim his 
children, he hired a house at Marlow, and there wrote The Revolt of Islam, the' 
longest of his poems. It contains many passages alluding to his sufferings 
from the Chancery decree which took his children from him, and much 
vehement declamation against the laws and their administration. While set- 
tled at Marlow, he was distinguished by the most active benevolence to the 
poor, and experienced an attack of ophthalmia, contracted while attending on 
them. In 1818 he left England for Italy, where he lived till his death in 
1822, on intimate terms with the large circle of English scholars and poets 
there resident. During these years he wrote his other large poems, Prometheus 
Unbound,"^ The Cenci, Hellas, Epipsychidion, The Witch of Atlas, Julian and 
Maddalo, and Ado7iais, his most perfect poem, inspired by his sorrow for poor 
Keats's death.^ On the 8th of July, 1822, he started with an intimate friend in 



1 It ■was on account of the atheistic senti- 
ments and hostility to Christianity shown 
both in the text and notes of this poem — 
perhaps the richest promise ever given at so 
early an age of poetic power — that Lord 
Chancellor Eldon, in 1817, decided against the 
claim of Shelley to his children by his first 
wife, on the ground that one holding such 
opinions was entirely unsuitable to their })roper 
education. This decision embittered Shelley 
still more against state constituted authority, 
and drove him further from the truths of 
Christianity. But let us hear one of his ad- 
mirers : — " In one senge Shelley was an in- 
fidel ; in another sense he was not an infidel. 
I could read you passages from Queen Mab 
which every right-minded man would indig- 
nantly condemn, and I could read you others 
breathing a spirit of benevolence and aspira- 
tion, and trust and purity, which are as sub- 

2 " Shelley styles his new poem Prometheus Uribmrnd, 
And 'tis like to remain so while time circles round; 
For surely an age would be spent in the finding 
A reader so weak as to pay for the binding." 

Theodore Hook 



lime as poetically beautiful. I could adduce 
numbers of such passages : the poem is full of 
them, steeped in a flood of earnest desire to 
see this earth regenerated and purified, and 
the spirit of man mingling with the Infinite 

Spirit of Good All that Shelley knew 

of Christianity was as a system of exclusion 
and bitterness which was to drive him from 

his country Yet there was a spirit in 

poor Shelley's mind which might have assimi- 
lated with the Spirit of his Kedeemer, — nay, 
which, I will dare to say, ivas kindred with 
that Spirit, if only his Redeemer had been 
differently imaged to him. Let who will de- 
nounce Shelley, I will not. I will not brand 
with atheism the name of one whose life was 
one dream of enthusiastic, however imprac- 
ticable, philanthropy."— Rev. E. W. Robkkxson, 
of whom see a notice in the Sixth Decade. 



3 In addition to his larger poems, Shelley 
wrote a multitude of minor poems, — some of 
which are of singular beauty, — tales, miscel- 
lanies in prose, and many translations from 



the German and the Greek. The latter are of 
high excellence, and drew forth warm praises 
from the Quarterly Review. 



SHELLEY. 



91 



a sail-boat from Leghorn for his home on the Bay of Spczia. A violent storm 
arose, the boat was overset, and the two voyagers perished. 

As a poet Shelley will always have a small circle of admirers; but to the 
great mass of mankind his poetry will be, as it were, a sealed book. It pos- 
sesses but little human interest: his characters are abstractions; his scenes of 
felicity are Utopian. He deals not with the details of daily life, and is, there- 
fore, apart from all ordinary sympathies. Even in his best efforts there 
always remain an obscurity and a dreaminess which will probably prevent 
his poems ever being extensively read.i Yet no poet since Milton has shown a 
greater mastery over language, and certainly few, if any, in this century have 
exerted a greater influence over the minds that lead English literature.^ 

THE RETURN OF SPRING. 

Ah, woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, 

But grief returns with the revolving year ; 
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone ; 

The ants, the bees, the swallows, reappear ; 
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead seasons' bier. 

The amorous birds now pair in every brake. 
And build their mossy homes in field and brere ; 

And the green lizard and the golden snake, 
Like unimprison'd flames, out of their trance awake. 

Through wood, and stream, and field, and hill, and ocean, 

A quickening life from the earth's heart has burst, 
As it has ever done, witli change and motion. 

From the great morning of the world ! when first 
God dawn'd on chaos ; in its stream immersed, 

The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light ; 
All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst, 

Diffuse themselves, and spend in love's delight 
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 



1 " I can no more understand Shelley than 
yoii can. His poetry is thin-sown with profit 
or delight." — Charles Lamu, Letter to Barton. 

2 " Shelley was iiudonbtedlj' a man of genius, 
— of very high genius, — but of a peculiar and 
unhealthy kind. It is needless to disguise the 
fact, and it accounts for all : his mind was 
diseased : he never knew, even from boyhood, 
what it was to breathe the atmosphere of 
healthy life, to have the mens sana in corpore 
sano. His sensHnlities were over-acute; his 
morality was thoroughly morbid; his meta- 
physical speculations illogical, incongruous, 
incomprehensible, — alike baseless and object- 
less. The suns and systems of his universe 
were mere nebulas; his continents were a chaos 
of dead matter ; his oceans ' a world of watei's, 
and Avithout a shore.' For the law of gravita- 
tion — that law which was to preserve the 
pbiuets in their courses — he substituted some 
undenionstruble dreamlike reflection of a 
dream, which he termed intellectual beauty. 
Life, according to him, was a phantasmagorial 
pictured vision, mere colors on the sunset 
clouds, and earth a globe hung on nothing, — 
self-governing, yet, strange to say, without 
laws. It is gratuitous absurdity to call his 



mystical speculations a search after truth; 
they are no such thing, and are as little worth 
the attention of reasoning and responsible 
man as the heterogeneous reveries of night- 
mare. They are a mere flaring up in the face 
of all that Revelation has mercifully disclosed, 
and all that sober Reason has confirmed. 
Shelley's faith was a pure psychological nega- 
tion, and cannot be confuted, simply because 
it asserts nothing; and, under the childish 
idea that all the crime, guilt, and misery of 
the world resulted from — what? — not the de- 
pravity of individuals, but from the very 
means, civil and ecclesiastical, by which these, 
in all ages and nations, have been at least 
attempted to be controlled, he seemed to take 
an insane delight in selecting for poetical 
illustration subjects utterly loathsome and 
repulsive, and which religion and morality, 
the virtuous and the pure, the whole natural 
heart and spirit of upright man, either rises 
up in rebellion against, or shrinks back from 
instinctively and with hori-or." — Moir's Poeti' 
cal Literature of the Nineteenth Century. 

For a fine paper comparing and contrasting 
BjTon and Shelley, see Miscellanies, by Rev. 
Charles Kingsley. 



92 



SHELLEY. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTUMN. 

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, 
The bare bouglis are sighing, the pale flowers are flying, 

And the year 
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, 
Is lying. 

Come, months, come away, 

From November to May, 

In your saddest array ; 

Follow the bier 

Of the dead, cold year, 
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. 

The chill rain is falling, the nipt-worm is crawling, 
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling 

For the year; 
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone 
To his dwelling. 

Come, months, come away ; 

Put on white, black, and gray, 

Let your light sisters play : 

Ye, follow the bier 

Of the dead, cold year, 
And make her grave green with tear on tear. 

A CALM WINTER NIGHT. 

How beautiful this night ! the balmiest sigh, 

Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear, 

"Were discord to the speaking quietude 

That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, 

Studded with stars unutterably bright. 

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, 

Seems like a canopy which love had spread 

To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills, 

Kobed in a garment of untrodden snow, — 

Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend, 

So stainless that their white and glittering spires 

Tinge not the moon's pure beam, — yon castled steep. 

Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower 

So idly that wrapt fancy cleemeth it 

A metaphor of peace, — all form a scene 

Where musing solitude might love to lift 

Her soul above this sphere of earthliness ; 

Where silence undisturb'd might watch alone. 

So cold, so bright, so still. 

THE CLOUD.^ 

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers 
From the seas and the streams : 



1 " The odes To the Skj/larlc and The Cloud, 
in the opinion of many critics, hear a purer 
poetical stamp than any other of his produc- 
tions. They were written as his mind prompted, 
listening to the carolling of the bird aloft in 



Ihe azure sky of Italy, or marking the clond 
as it sped across the heavens, while he floated 
in his boat on the Thames. No poet was ever 
warmed by a more genuine and unforced in- 
spiration. His extreme sensibility gave the 



SHELLEY. 

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

111 their noon-day dreams. 
.From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rock'd to rest on their mother's breast,^ 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the Hail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under ; 
And then again I dissolve it in rain, 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I sift the snow on tlie mountains below, 

And their great pines groan aghast ; 
And all the night 'tis my pillow Avhite, 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers 

Lightning, my pilot, sits ; 
In a cavern under is fetter' d the thunder, 

It struggles and howls at fits; 
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 

This pilot is guiding me, 
Lured by the love of the genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea ; 
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 

Over the lakes and the plains. 
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 

The spirit he loves remains ; 
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile. 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 

And his burning plumes outspread. 
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack^ 

When the morning-star shines dead ; 
As on the jag of a mountain crag, 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings ; 
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 

Its ardors^ of rest and love, 
And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of heaven above, 
With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest. 

As still as. a brooding dove. 

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, 
Whom mortals call the moon. 



intensity of passion to his intellectnal pur- 
suits, and rendered his mind keenly alive to 
every perception of outward objects, as well 
as to his internal sensations. Such a gift is, 
among the sad vicissitudes of human life, the 
disappointments we meet, and the galling 
sense of our own mistakes and errors, fraught 
with pain ; to escape from such he delivered 
lip his soul to poetry, and felt happy when he 
sheltered himself from the influence of human 
sympathies in the wildest regions of fancy." — 
Mrs. Shelley, Pre/, to Poet. Worlcs. 



The fanciful conceptions of which this poem 
consists are embodied in richly colored and 
most musical language. The obscurity, how- 
ever, of some passages is a material drawback 
on the reader's pleasure. 

1 Their mother, d-c. — i. e. the earth's breast, 
as she rapidly revolves — " dances" — around tho 
sun. 

2 i?ac7v — a vapor, mist; here, a body of vapors 
forming a large cloiid. Shakspeare's expression, 
" Leave not a rack behind," is well known. 

3 Its ardors, — its warm sympathies with. 



94 



SHELLEY. 



Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 

By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 

Which only the angels hear, 
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof. 

Tlie stars peep behind her and peer ; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent. 

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas. 
Like strips of the sky iiillen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, 

And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 

Over a torrent sea, 
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof. 

The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch through wdiich I march, 

With hurricane, fire, and snow, 
When the powers of the air are chain'd to my chair, 

Is the million-color'd bow ; 
The sphere-fire^ above its soft colors wove, 

While the moist earth was laughing below. 

I am the daughter of earth and water. 

And the nurseling of the sky ; 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 

I change, but I cannot die. 
For after the rain, when, with never a stain, 

The pavilion of heaven is bare. 
And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, 

Build up the blue dome of air, 
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,^ 

And out of the caverns of rain, 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I rise and unbuild it again. 

THE EAGLE AND SERPENT.^ 

In the air do I behold indeed 

An eagle and a serpent wreathed in fight, 

And now^, relaxing its impetuous flight. 
Before th' aerial rock on which I stood, 

The eagle hovering wdieel'd to left and right, 
And hung with lingering wings over the flood. 
And startled with its yells the wide aii-'s solitude. 



1 Sphere-firt — i. e. a liglit from the spheres. 

2 Cenotaph.— In this passage the skj^— the 
proper region of the clouds — being, after the 
rain, empty of them, seems to be called on this 
account their cenotaph. 

8 The whole fine description (from the Eevolt 



of Islam) is too long for insertion here. Result 
— the serpent — perhaps a " copperhead" — was 
killed. Thus may the noble bird (the emblem 
to our country of Union and Liberty) ever 
prove victorious over his venomous foes I 



SHELLEY. 

A shaft of Hglit upon its wings descended, 
And every golden feather gleam'd therein, 

Feather and scale inextricably blended : 

The serpent's mailed and many-color'd skin 

Shone through the plumes, its coils were twined Avithin, 
With many a swoln and knotted fold ; and high 

And far the neck receding lithe and thin, 
Snstain'd a crested head, which warily 
Shifted, and glanced before the eagle's steadfast eye. 

Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling, 
With clang of wings and scream the eagle sail'd 

Incessantly; sometimes on high concealing 
Its lessening orbs, sometimes as if it fail'd, 

Droo])'d through the air, and still it shriek'd and wail'd, 
And, casting back its eager head, with beak 

And talon unremittingly assail'd 

The wreathed serpent, wlio did ever seek 

Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak. 



THE SKYLARK. 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert. 
That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still, and higher. 

From the earth thou springest 

Like a cloud of lire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are brightening, 

Thou dost float and run. 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight 
Like a star of heaven 

In the broad daylight. 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. 

Keen as are the arrows 

Of that silver sphere, 
Whose intense lamp narrows 

In the white dawn clear. 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 

All the earth and air 

AVith thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare. 

From one lonely cloud 



SHELLEY. 

What tliou art we know not ; 

What is most like thee ; 
From rainbow-clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see, 
As from thy presence shoAvers a rain of melody. 

Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 

Like a higli-born maiden 

In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 

Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bovv^er: 

Like a glowworm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view : 

Like a rose embower'd 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflower' d, 

Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. 

Sound of vernal showers 

On the twinkling grass, 
Rain-awaken' d flowers. 

All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 

Teach us, sprite or bird. 

What sweet thoughts are thine : 
I have never heard 

Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 

Chorus hymeneal. 

Or triumpKal chant, 
Match'd with thine would be all 
But an empty vaunt, — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
What shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 

With thy clear, keen joyance 

Languor cannot be ; 
Shadow of annoyance 

Never came near thee : 

sad satiety. 



SHELLEY. 97 

Waking or asleep, 

Thou of deatli must deem 
Things more true and deep 

Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 

We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
If we were things born 

Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joys we ever should come near. 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound. 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found. 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground. 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 

From my lips would flow. 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT.^ 

A sensitive plant in a garden grew, 
And the young winds fed it with silver dew ; 
And it open'd its fan-like leaves to the light. 
And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 

And the spring arose on the garden fair, 
Like the spirit of love felt everywhere. 
And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast 
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 

The snow-drop, and then the violet. 
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet. 
And their breath was mix'd with fresh odor sent 
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 

Then the pied wind-flowers, and the tulip tall, 
And narcissi, the fairest among them all, 
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 
Till they die of their own dear loveliness ; 



1 "I am aware that quoting a few stanzas 
from Tlie Se^nsitive Plant can only call to mind 
the pedant in the Facetiie of Ilicrocles, who 
carried about a brick with him in the market- | 

9 



place as a specimen of the building he had for 
sale. But we venture on it, and take part of 
the catalogue of flowers." — MoiR. 



98 WOLFE. 



And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, 
Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale, 
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
Through their pavilions of tender green ; 

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, 
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, 
It was felt like an odor within the sense ; 

And the rose, like a nymph to the bath addrest. 
Which unveil'd the depth of her glowing breast, 
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare ; 

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, 
As a Moenad, its moonlight-color' d cup, 
Till the iiery star, which is its eye, 
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky ; 

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, 
The sweetest flower for scent that blows ; 
And all rare blossoms, from every clime, 
GrcAV in that garden in perfect prime. 



CHARLES WOLFE, 1791-1S23. 

Charles Wolfe, the youngest son of Theobald "Wolfe, Esq., was born iu 
Dublin on the 14th of December, 1791. As a youth, he showed great precocity 
of talent, united to a most amiable disposition. After the usual preparatory 
studies, in which he distinguished himself, he entered the University of Dublin 
in 1809. He immediately attained a high rank for his classical attainments 
and for his trvie poetic talent; and the first year of his college course he ob- 
tained a prize for a poem upon Jugurtha in Prison. Before he left the uni- 
versity, he wrote a number of jDieces of poetry that were truly beautiful, but 
especially that one on which his fame chiefly rests, — the Lines on the Burial of 
Sir John Moore. 

In 1814 he took his bachelor's degree, and entered at once upon the study 
of divinity. In 1817 he was ordained as curate of the church of Ballyclog, in 
Tyrone, and afterwards of Donoughmore. His conscientious and incessant 
attention to his duties in a wild and scattered parish soon made inroads 
upon his health, and he was advised to go to the south of France as the most 
likely means to avert the threatened malady, — consumption. He remained 
but little more than a month at Bordeaux, and returned home, appearing to 
have been benefited by the voyage. But the fond hojDes of his friends were 
soon to be blasted, — the fatal disease had taken too strong a hold upon its 
victim, — and, after a protracted illness accompanied with much suffering, 
which he bore with Christian fortitude and patience, he expired on the 21st 
of February, 1823, in the thirty-second year of his age.' 

1 The following eloquent tribute to his [ of Trinity College, Dublin, author of the Lec- 
memory was written by the Rev. Dr. Miller, j tures on Modern History : — "He combined elo- 



WOLFE. 



99 



THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN 3fOOREA 

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 
As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; 

Not a soklier discharged his farewell shot 
O'er the grave where our hero we huried. 

We buried him darkly at dead of night, 
The sods with our bayonets turning, — 

By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, 
And the lantern dimly burning. 

No useless coffin enclosed his breast, 

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him ; 

But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, 
With his martial cloak around him.^ 

Few and short were the prayers we said. 

And we spoke not a word of sorrow : 
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, 

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.^ 

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed. 

And smooth'd down his lonely pillow. 
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, 

And we far away on the billow ! 

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, 

And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him; 
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on 

In the grave where a Briton has laid him. 

But half of our heavy task was done 

When the clock struck the hour for retiring ; 

And we heard the distant and random gun 
Of the enemy sullenly firing.* 



quence of the first order with the zeal of an 
apostle. During the short time in which he 
held a curacy in the diocese of Armagh, he so 
wholly devoted himself to the discharge of his 
duties in a very populous parish, that he ex- 
hausted his strength by exertions dispropor- 
tioned to his constitution, and was cut off by 
disease in what should have been the bloom 
of youth. This zeal, which was too powerful 
for his bodily frame, was yet controlled by a 
vigorous and manly intellect, which all the 
ardor of religion and poetry could never urge 
"•to enthusiasm. His opinions were as sober as 
if they were merely speculative; his fancy 
was as vivid as if he never reasoned ; his con- 
duct as zealous as if he thought only of his 
j)ractical duties; every tiling in him held its 
proper place, except a due consideration of him- 
self, and to his neglect of this he became an 
early victim." 

1 The passage in the Fdinhurgh Annual Ee- 
gister (1808) on which Wolfe founded his ode 
is as follows : — " Sir John Moore had often said 
that, if he was killed in battle, he wished to 



be buried where he fell. The body was re- 
moved at midnight to the citadel of Corunna. 
A grave was dug for him on the ramparts 
there, by a body of the Ninth regiment, the 
aides-de-camp attending by turns. No coffhi 
could be procured, and the officers of his staff 
wrapped the body, dressed as it was, in a mili- 
tary cloak and blankets. The interment was 
hastened; for, about eight in the morning, 
some firing was heard, and the officers feared 
that, if a serious attack were made, they should 
be ordered away, and not suffered to pay him 
their last duty. The officers of his family bore 
him to the grave; the funeral service was read 
by the chaplain ; and the corpse was covered 
with earth." 

2 Lord Byron, who considered this poem one 
of the finest in our language, pronounced this 
stanza perfect, particularly the last two lines. 

3 Because the British troops were to embark 
the next morning. 

* As if in spite because they had been do 
feated. 



100 



WOLFE. 



Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory: 

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, 
But we left him alone with his glory.^ ' 



SONG.— TO JIARY.^ 

If I had thought thou couldst have died, 

I might not weep for thee ; 
Bat I forgot, when by thy side. 

That thou couldst mortal be : 
It never through my mind had past 

The time would e'er be o'er, 
And I on thee should look my last. 

And thou shouldst smile no more ! 

And still upon that face I look. 

And think 'twill smile again ; 
And still the thought I will not brook, 

That I must look in vain ! 
But when I speak, thou dost not say 

What thou ne'er left'st unsaid ; 
And now I feel, as well I may. 

Sweet Mary ! thou art dead ! 

If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art, — 

All cold and all serene, — 
I still might press thy silent heart. 

And where thy smiles have been ! 
While e'en thy chill, bleak corjise I have, 

Thou seemest still mine own ; 
But there I lay thee in thy grave, — 

And I am now alone ! 

I do not think, where'er thou art. 

Thou hast forgotten me ; 
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart, 

In thinking too of thee : 
Yet there was round thee such a dawn 

Of light ne'er seen before, 
As fancy never could have drawn, 

And never can restore ! 



1 " Charles Wolfe has been one of the few 
who have gained probable immortality from a 
casual gleam of inspiration thrown over a 
single poem, consisting of only a few stanzas, 
and these, too, little more than a spirited ver- 
sion from the prose of another. But the lyric 
is indeed full of fervor and freshness; and his 
triumph is not to be grudged." — D. M. Mom. 

2 This song was written to one of Wolfe's 
favorite melodies, the Irish air Gramachree, 
for which he thought no words had ever been 
composed w^hich came up to his idea of the 



peculiar pathos which pervades the whole of 
that strain. When asked if he had any real 
incident in view, or alluded to any particular 
person, he said, " That he had sung the air 
over and over till he burst into a ilood of tears, 
in which mood he composed the words." The 
song seems, indeed, to have been inspired by the 
muse of Grief, and rivals the pathos of Cow- 
per's address to a real Mary. In tenderness, 
simplicity, and elegance, it is hardly surpassed 
by any thing in our language. 



WOLFE. 101 



BLINDNESS OF 3IILT0N. 

« 

There lived a divine old man, whose everlasting remains we 
have all admired, whose memory is the pride of England and 
of nature. His youth was distinguished by a happier lot than 
perhaps genius has often enjoyed at the commencement of its 
career ; he was enabled, by the liberality of Providence, to dedi- 
cate his soul to the cultivation of those classical accomplish- 
ments in which almost his infancy delighted ; he had attracted 
admiration at the period when it is most exquisitely felt; he 
stood forth the literary and political champion of republican 
England; and Europe acknowledged him the conqueror. But 
the storm arose; his fortune sank with the republic which he 
had defended ; the name which future ages have consecrated was 
forgotten ; and neglect was imbittered by remembered celebrity. 
Age was advancing. Health was retreating. Nature hid her 
face from him forever ; for never more to him returned 

" Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, 
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine." 

What was the refuge of the deserted veteran from penury — • 
from neglect — from infamy — from darkness ? Not in a querulous 
and peevish despondency; not in an unmanly recantation of 
principles, erroneous, but unchanged ; not in the tremendous 
renunciation of what Heaven has given, and Heaven alone 
should take away : but he turned from a distracted country and 
voluptuous court ; he turned from triumphant enemies and ineffi- 
cient friends ; he turned from a world, that to him was a uni- 
versal blank, to the muse that sits among the cherubim, and she 
caught him into heaven! The clouds that obscured his vision 
upon earth instantaneously vanished before the blaze of celestial 
effulgence, and his eyes opened at once upon all the glories and 
terrors of the Almighty, the seats of eternal beatitude and bot- 
tomless perdition. What though to look upon the face of this 
earth was still denied ? what was it to him that one of the out- 
cast atoms of creation was concealed from his view, when the 
Deity permitted the muse to unlock his mysteries, and disclose 
to the poet the recesses of the universe, — when she bade his soul 
expand into its immensity, and enjoy as well its horrors as its 
magnificence? what was it to him that he had "fallen upon evil 
days and evil tongues" ? for the muse could transplant his spirit 
into the bowers of Eden, where the frown of fortune was disre- 
garded, and the weight of incumbent infirmity forgotten in the 
smile that beamed on primeval innocence, and tlie tear that was 
consecrated to man's first disobedience ! 

9* 



102 BLOOMFIELD. 



ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, 17 66-1828, 

It is not quaint and local terms 

Besprinkled o'er thy rustic lay, 
Though well such dialect confirms 

Its power unletter'd minds to sway; 
But 'tis not these that most display 

Thy sweetest charms, thy gentlest thrall: — 
Words, phrases, fashions, pass away, 

But Truth and Nature live through all. 

Bernakd Barton. 

Robert Bloomfield, the author of The Farmer's Boy, was the son of a tailor 
at Honington, in Suffolk, and was born on the 3d of December, 1766. At the 
early age of eleven he was literally the Farmer's Boy of his own poem, being 
placed with a Mr. Austin, a farmer, at Sapiston, in Suffolk. In this situation, 
which he has so accurately described, and where he first imbibed his enthu- 
siastic attachment to the charms of nature, he continued for two years and a 
half, when he was apprenticed to his brother George, a shoemaker, in London. 
His principal occupation was to wait upon the journeymen; and in his inter- 
vals of leisure he read the newspaper, and was soon able to comjDrehend and 
admire the speeches of Burke, Fox, and other statesmen of the day. A perusal 
of some poetry in the London Magazine led to his earliest attempts at verse, 
which he sent to a news23aper, under the title of The Milkmaid, and The 
Sailor's Return. 

In 1784, to avoid the consequences of some unpleasant disputes among his 
brethren of the trade, he retired for two months to the country, and was re- 
ceived by his former master, Mr. Austin, with the kind-est hospitality. It is to 
this event we owe the composition of his admirable poem ; " and here," observes 
his brother, " with his mind glowing with the fine descriptions of rural scenery 
which he found in Thomson's Seasons, he again retraced the very fields where 
he began to think. Here, free from the smoke, the noise, the contention of the 
city, he imbibed that love of rural simplicity and rural innocence which fitted 
him, in a great degree, to be the writer of such a work as The Farmer's Boy." 

After this visit to his native fields, he recommenced his business as a ladies* 
shoemaker in London, and shortly after married a young woman by the name 
of Church. He then hired a room in Bell Alley, Coleman Street,^ and worked in 
the garret of the house. It was here, in the midst of six or seven other work- 
men, that he composed the main part of his celebrated poem. Two or three 
publishers to whom he first offered it, learning his occupation and seeing him 
so poorly clad, refused it with almost contempt. But at length it reached the 
hands of Capel Lofft, Esq., 2 who sent it with the strongest recommendations to 
Mr, Hill, the proprietor of the Monthly Mirror, who negotiated the sale of the 
poem with the publishers, Verner & Hood. These gentlemen acted with 
great liberality towards Bloomfield, — to their honor be it said, — by voluntarily 
giving him two hundred pounds in addition to the fifty pounds originally 
stipulated for his poem, and by securing to him a portion of the copyright. 
Immediately on its appearance it was received with the greatest applause from 

1 "Bloomfield followed his original calling I 2 Editor of the Aphorisms from Shakspeare, 
of a shoemaker at No. 14 Great Bell-Yard, | and other works. 
Coleman Street."— Murray's London, p. 135. 



BLOOMFIELD. 103 

all quarters, the most eminent critics^ coming out warmly in its praise; and 
within three years after its publication twenty-six thousand copies of it were 
sold. 

His good fortune, which, he said, appeared to him as a dream, enabled him 
to remove to a more comfortable habitation; but, though he continued work- 
ing at his trade, he did not neglect the cultivation of his poetical talents. His 
fame was increased by the subsequent publication of Rural Tales, Ballads, and 
Songs; Good Tidings, or News from the Farm; Wild Floioers; and Banks of the 
Wye. But an indiscriminate liberality towards his numerous poor relations, 
together with a growing family, brought him into pecuniary difficulties, which, 
added to long-continued ill health, so preyed upon his mind that he was re- 
duced at last to a state little short of insanity. He died at Shefibrd, August 19, 
1823, at the age of fifty-seven. 

The best poems of Bloomfield are The Farmer's Boy, Wild Floioers, and seve- 
ral of the Ballads and Tales. It is enough to say in praise of them that they 
have received the warmest commendations of such critics as James Mont- 
gomery, Dr. Nathan Drake, Southey, and Sir Egerton Brydges. The author's 
amiable disposition and benevolence pervade the whole of his compositions. 
There is in them an artless simplicity, a virtuous rectitude of sentiment, an 
exquisite sensibility to the beautiful, which cannot fail to gratify every one 
who respects moral excellence and loves the delightful scenes of country life. 

The Farmer's Boy is divided into four books, named from the four seasons. 
The introductory account, in "Spring," of Giles's (as the "Farmer's Boy" is 
called) going out to his early morning work, is followed by a descrijjtion of 

MILKING. 

Forth comes the maid, and like the morning smiles ; 
The mistress too, and follow'd close by Giles. 
A fi'iendly tripod forms their humble seat, 
With pails bright scour'd and delicately sweet ; 
Where shadowing elms obstruct the morning ray, 
Begins the work, begins the simple lay ; 
The full-charged udder yields its willing streams, 
While Mary sings some lover's amorous dreams ; 
And crouching Giles beneath a neighboring tree 
Tugs o'er his pail, and chants with equal glee, 
Whose hat with tatter' d brim, of nap so bare, 
From the cow's side purloins a coat of hair, 
A mottled ensign of his harmless trade, 
An unambitious, peaceable cockade. 

Spring, I. 181. 

Giles, having fatigued himself by his endeavors to frighten a host of spar- 
rows from the wheat-ears, retires to repose beneath the friendly shelter of some 
projecting boughs; and, while with head upon the ground he is gazing upon 
the heavens, he suddenly hears 



^ Tho approbation first bestowed has steadily I malignant sneers at Bloomfield are more sure 
continued, notwithstanding, the contemptuous to injure the lampooner than the lampooned, 
derision of Byron in his English Bards. But | 



104 



BLOOMFIELD. 



THE SKYLARK. 

Just starting from the corn he cheerly sings, 
And trusts with conscious pride his downy wings ; 
Still louder breathes, and in the face of day 
Mounts up, and calls on Giles to mark his way. 
Close to his eyes his hat he instant bends. 
And forms a friendly telescope, that lends 
Just aid enough to dull the glaring light. 
And place the wandering bird before his sight, 
That oft beneath a light cloud sweeps along, 
Lost for a while, yet pours the varied song. 
The eye still follows, and the cloud moves by, 
Again he stretches up the clear blue sky; 
His form, his motion, undistinguish'd quite, 
Save when he wheels direct from shade to light. 
The fluttering songster a mere speck became, 
Like fancy's floating bubbles in a dream : 
The gazer sees, but, yielding to repose, 
Unwittingly his jaded eyelids close. 
Delicious sleep ! From sleep who could forbear, 
With no more guilt than Giles, and no more care? 
Peace o'er his slumbers waves her guardian wing, 
Nor conscience once disturbs him with a sting ; 
He Avakes refresh'd from every trivial pain. 
And takes his pole and brushes round again.^ 



THE BLIND CHILD. 

AVhere's the blind child so admirably itur. 
With guileless dimples, and with flaxen hair 
That waves in every breeze ? He's often seen 
Beyond yon cottage-wall, or on the green 
With others, match'd in spirit and in size. 
Health in their cheeks and rapture in their eyes. 
That full expanse of voice, to children dear, 
Soul of their sports, is duly cherish'd here. 
And, hark ! that laugh is his, — that jovial cry, — 
He hears the ball and trundling hoop brush by, 
And runs the giddy course with all his might — 
A very child in every thing but sight — 
With circumscribed, but not abated powers, 
Play the great object of his infant hours. 
In many a game he takes- a noisy part, 
And shows the native gladness of his heart : 



1 " The most beautiful part in the descrip- 
tion of this bird, and which is at once curiously 
faithful and expressively harmonious, I have 
copied in italics. Milton and Thomson have 
both introduced the flight of the skylark,— 
the first with his accustomed spirit and sub- 
limity; but probably no poet has surpassed, 
either in fancy or expression, tlie following 
prose narrative of Dr. Goldsmith, in his His- 
tory of the Earth and Animated Nature: — 
' Nothing,' observes he, ' can be more pleasing 
than to see the lark warbling upon the wing, 



raising its note as it soars, iintil it seems lost 
in the immense heights above us, the note 
continuing, the bird itself unseen; to see it 
then descending with a swell as it comes from 
the clouds, yet sinking by degrees as it ap- 
proaches its nest, — the spot where all its alTec- 
tions are centred, the spot tliat has prompted 
all this joy.' This description of the descent 
of the bird and of the pleasures of its little 
nest is conceived in a strain of the most ex- 
quisite delicacy and feeling." — Du. Drake. 



BLOOMFIELD. 



105 



But soon he hears, on pleasure all intent, 
The new suggestion and the quick assent ; 
The grove invites delight, thrills every breast 
To leap the ditch and seek the downy nest. 
Away they start, leave balls and hoops behind, 
And one companion leave, — the boy is blind! 
His fancy paints their distant paths so gay. 
That childish fortitude a while gives way ; 
He feels his dreadful loss, — yet short the pain, — 
Soon he resumes his cheerfulness again. 
Pondering how best his moments to employ. 
He sings his little songs of nameless joy, 
Creeps on the warm green turf for many an hour, 
And plucks by chance the white and yellow flower ; 
Smoothing their stems, while resting on his knees. 
He binds a nosegay which he never sees ; 
Along the homeward path then feels his way, 
Lifting his brow against the shining day, 
And, with a joyful rapture round his eyes. 
Presents a sighing parent with the prize !^ 

News from the Farm, 

THE DISTRACTED FEMALE.'^ 

— Naught her rayless melancholy cheers, 
Or soothes her breast, or stops her streaming tears. 
Her matted locks un ornamented flow, 
Clasping her knees, and waving to and fro ; 
Her head bow'd down, her faded cheek to hide ; 
A piteous mourner by the patliAvay side. 
Some tufted mole-hill through the livelong day 
She calls her throne ; there weeps her life away : 
And oft the gayly-passing stranger stays 
His well-timed step, and takes a silent gaze, 
Till sympathetic drops unbidden start, 
And pangs quick springing muster round his heart ; 
And soft he treads with other gazers round. 
And lain would catch her sorrow's plaintive sound : 
One word alone is all that strikes the ear. 
One short, pathetic, simple word, — " Oh dear I" 
A thousand times repeated to the wind. 
That wafts the sigh, but leaves the pang behind! 
Forever of the proffer' d parley shy. 
She hears the unwelcome foot advancing nigh ; 
Nor quite unconscious of her wretched plight, 
Gives one sad look, and hurries out of sight. 

Fair promised sunbeams of terrestrial bliss, 
Health's gallant hopes, — and are ye sunk to this ? 



1 " When we consider the circumstances 
under which the early poetry of Bloomfleld 
was composed, — in a bare, grim garret, by a 
feeble-constitutioned man approaching middle 
life, and amid the fatigues of mechanical labor, 
•which yet scarcely sufficed to satisfy the 
clamant necessities of a wife and three chil- 
dren, — The Farmer's Boy ought not to be re- 
garded otherwise than as a wonderful produc- 



tion. Few are its errors in taste, either as to 
matter or manner; and its style is simple, 
chaste, unaffected, nay, occasionally elegant." 
— D. M. MoiR. 

2 " It presents as finished a specimen of 
versification as can be extracted from tho 
pages of our most polished poets; and its 
pathos is such as to require no comment of 
mine."— Drake's Literary Hours, ii. 467. 



106 



ERSKINE. 



For in life's road, tliough thorns abundant grow, 

There still are joys poor Poll can never know ; 

Joys which the gay companions of her prime 

Sip, as they drift along the stream of time ; 

At eve to hear beside their tranquil home 

The lifted latch that speaks the lover come; 

That love matured, next playful on the knee 

To press the velvet lip of infancy ; 

To stay the tottering step, the features trace ; 

Inestimable sweets of social peace ! 

O Thou ! who bid'st the vernal juices rise. 

Thou, on whose blasts autumnal foliage flies ! 

Let Peace ne'er leave me, nor my heart grow cold, 

Whilst life and sanity are mine to hold.^ 



THOMAS ERSKINE, 1750-1823. 

Thomas (Lord) Erskine, third son of the Earl of Buchan, was born in the 
year 1750, and was educated at the University of St. Andrews. After serving 
six years in the navy and array, he was induced, at the earnest request of his 
mother, who saw his talents, and jestingly said "he must be Lord Chancellor," 
to quit the military profession and prepare himself for the law. In 1778 he 
was called to the bar, where his success was immediate and remarkable. In a 
case of libel, in which he advocated the cause of the defendant. Captain 
Baillie,2 he displayed so much eloquence and talent that the legal world was 
astonished, and nearly thirty briefs were put into his hands before he left the 
court. In 1781 he appeared as counsel for Lord George Gordon, in what was 
called a case of c'onstructive treason, and, by his wonderful skill and elo- 
quence and legal learning, procured the acquittal of his client, and thus, for 
the time, gave the death-blow to the tremendous doctrine of constructive 
treason. 

But there is nothing in the life of this eminent man which reflects so much 
honor on his memory as his exertions in defence of the privileges of juries. 
The rights of those pro tempore judges he strenuously maintained upon all 
occasions, particularly in the celebrated trial of the Dean of St. Asaph for 
libel, in 1784, when Justice Buller refused to receive the verdict of "guilty 
of publishing only," as returned by the jury .3 In 1789 he again displayed his 



1 " From the review we have now taken of 
the Farmer's Boy, it will be evident, I think, 
that, owing to its harmony and sweetness of 
versification, its benevolence of sentiment and 
originality of imagery, it is entitled to rank 
very high in the class of descriptive and pas- 
toral poetry, and that, most probably, it will 
descend to posterity with a character and with 
encomia similar to what has been the endeavor 
of these essays to attach to it." — Dr. Drake. 

2 On this occasion he showed that the con- 
rage which marked his professional life was not 
acquired after -the success which rendered it a 
safe and a cheap virtue, but, being naturally 
inherent in the man, was displayed at a mo- 
ment when attended with great risks. In the 



coiu'se of his eloquent argument he was in- 
veighing very strongly against a certain " noble 
lord," when the judge. Lord Mansfield, inter- 
rupted him, and remarked that "Lord — — 
was not before the court." 

" I know he is not," was the bold reply ; " but, 
for that very reason, I will bring him before the 
court. I will drag Mm to light who is the dark 
mover behind this scene of iniquity." 

3 The following is a part of the spirited dia- 
logue that ensued when the jury returned their 
verdict. It shows the noble daring and courage 
of Erskine. 

3Ir. Ei-sline.— la the word only to stand part 
of your verdict ? 

A Juror. — Certainly. 



ERSKINE. 



107 



wonderful powers in the defence of Mr. Stockdale, a bookseller, who was tried 
by the government for publishing what was charged as a libellous pamphlet 
in favor of the celebrated Warren Hastings. This is one of the very best, if not 
the best, of all his speeches; and, ''whether we regard the wonderful skill with 
which the argument is conducted, the soundness of the principles laid down, 
and their happy application to the case, the vividness of fancy with which 
these are illustrated, and the touching language in which they are conveyed, 
it is justly to be regarded as a consummate specimen of the art of addressing 
a jury." This masterly defence procured an acquittal for Stockdale, though 
the fact of publication was admitted. 

But the most arduous effort of his professional life arose out of the part he 
took in the defence of Hardy, Home Tooke, and others, in 1794, charged with 
high treason. These trials lasted several weeks, and the ability displayed by 
Mr. Erskine on this memorable occasion was acknowledged and admired by 
men of all parties. In 1797 he delivered a most admirable speech — speaking 
more as a man than as a lawyer — on the prosecution of a Mr. Williams, the 
printer and publisher of that foul infidel book, The Age of Reason, by Thomas 
Paine. Some passages of this speech are equal to any thing he ever delivered. 

In politics, Mr. Erskine was on the liberal side, acting with Fox and others 
of that party. He strenuously opposed the war with France, and published a 
pamphlet against it, entitled A Vieio of the Causes and Consequences of a War 
with France, which had an immense sale. On the death of Mr. Pitt, in 1806, 
when Lord Grenville formed a new administration, Mr. Erskine was created 
a peer, and elevated to the dignity of Lord High Chancellor of England. His 
public career may be said to have terminated with this event, and the 
remainder of his life was undistinguished by any great exertion. While 
accompanying one of his sons by sea to Edinburgh, he was seized 'with an 
inflammation of the chest, which compelled him to land at Scarborough. He 
reached Scotland by easy stages, but expired on the 17th of November, 1823, at 
the seat of his brother, a few miles from Edinburgh. 

The eloquence of Lord Erskine was characterized not merely by the elegance 
of its diction and the graces of its style, but was peculiarly remarkable for its 
grace and earnestness.^ As an advocate, '' he possessed the power of summon- 
ing upon the instant all the resources of his mind, and bringing them to bear 
upon the subject before the court with extraordinary effect. In this respect, 
his speeches bear a resemblance to those of Mr. Pitt, while they far surpass 



Mr. Justice Bulhr. — Then the verdict must 
be misnnderstood ; let me understand the jury. 

Mr. Erskine. — (With great spirit.) The jury 
do understand their verdict. 

Mr. Justice Buller. — Sir, I will not be inter- 
rupted. 

Mr. Erskine. — I stand here as an advocate for 
a brother citizen, and I desire that the word 
only may be recorded. 

Mr. Justice Buller. — Sit down, sir; remember 
your duty, or I shall be obliged to proceed in 
another manner. 

Mr. Erskine. — Your lordship may proceed in 
what manner you think fit. I know my duty 
as well as your lordsliip knows yours. I shall 
not alter my conduct. 

1 " The eloquence of this remarkable man was 
an era at the bar. His addresses to juries have 
not been equalled : they alike captivated their 



understandings, their imaginations, and their 
passions. He often rose to the highest oratory, 
but it was always simple ; and even in his sub- 
limest flights there was much that was very 
familiar; but this rather set off than clouded 
their splendor, rather increased than dimin- 
ished their general effect. His skill in the 
conduct of a cause, and in the examination of 
witnesses, has never been surpassed; his dis- 
cretion never forsook him, even in his highest 
forensic enthusiasm ; his manners were always 
most gentlemanly; at the bar he was uni- 
formly loved and admired ; and, when he ac- 
cepted the seals, no one, as Lord Eldon justly 
remarked of him, could have a greater wish to 
discharge properly the office which was con- 
ferred on him, or greater talents to qualify him 
for a proper discharge of it." — Eevmiiscences, by 
Charles Butler. 



108 UESKINE. 

them in impassioned fervor, in brilliancy of imagination, in copiousness of 
imagery, and in that quality of the mind expressed by the emphatic word— 
genius. His dexterity was likewise unrivalled at the bar; and these qualifica- 
tions, united with a courage which nothing could daunt and a firmness which 
was never overcome, rendered him almost irresistible on the defensive side 
of political persecution. In stemming the tide of state persecutions, this 
single patriot may be said to have saved his country from the horrors of a 
general proscription."^ 

PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF LIBEL. 

Gentlemen, the question you have, therefore, to try upon all 
this matter is extremely simple. It is neither more nor less than 
this : — At a time when the charges against Mr. Hastings were, 
by the implied consent of the Commons, in every hand and on 
every table, — when, by their managers, the lightning of eloquence 
was incessantly consuming him, and flashing in the eyes of the 
public, — when every man was with perfect impunity saying, and 
writing, and publishing just Avhat he pleased of the supposed plun- 
derer and devastator of nations, — would it have been criminal in 
Mr. Hastings himself to remind the public that he w^as a native 
of this free land, entitled to the common protection of her justice, 
and that he had a defence in his turn to offer to them, the out- 
lines of which he implored them in the mean time to receive, as 
an antidote to the unlimited and unpunished poison in circulation 
agaii^gt him? This is, without color or exaggeration, the true 
question you are to decide. Because I assert, without the hazard 
of contradiction, that if Mr. Hastings himself could have stood 
justified or excused in your eyes for publishing this volume in 
ins own defence, the author, if he wrote it bona fide to defend him, 
must stand equally excused and justified; and if the author be 
justified, the publisher cannot be criminal, unless you had evi- 
dence that it was published by him with a different spirit and 
intention from those in which it w^as written. The question, 
therefore, is correctly what I just now" stated it to be: — Could 
Mr. Hastings have been condemned to infamy for writing this 
book? 

Gentlemen, I tremble with indignation to be driven to put such 
a question in England. Shall it be endured, that a subject of 
this country may be impeached by the Commons for the transac- 
tions of twenty years, — that the accusation shall spread as wide 
as the region of letters, — that the accused shall stand, day after 
day and year after year, as a spectacle before the public, which 
shall be kept in a perpetual state of inflammation against him ; 



1 Encycloppedia Britannica. Read an excel- I mirable sketch of liis character in that very- 
lent article on Lord Erskiiie in the sixteenth instructive book, Staiiious Refwms and Me- 
volume of the Edinhurgh Review; also, an ad- | formers of Great Britain. 



ERSKINE. 109 

yet that he shall not, without the severest penalties, be permitted 
to submit any thing to the judgment of mankind in his defence? 
If this be law (which it is for you to-day to decide), such a man 
has no trial. That great hall, built by our fathers for English 
justice, is no longer a court, but an altar ; and an Englishman, 
instead of being judged in it by God and his country, is a victim 
and a sacrifice. — Speech on the Trial of Stockdale. 

CHRISTIANS THE BRIGHTEST 0RNA3IENTS OF OUR RAGE. 

Gentlemen of the Jury : — How any man can rationally vindi- 
cate the publication of such a book,^ in a country where the 
Christian religion is the very foundation of the law of the land, 
I am totally at a loss to conceive, and have no wish to discuss. 
How is a tribunal, whose whole jurisdiction is founded upon the 
solemn belief and practice of what is here denied as falsehood 
and reprobated as impiety, to deal with such an anomalous 
defence? Upon what principle is it even offered to the court, 
whose authority is contemned and mocked at? If the religion 
proposed to be called in question is not previously adopted in 
belief and solemnly acted upon, what authority has the court to 
pass any judgment at all of acquittal or condemnation? Why 
am I now, or upon any other occasion, to submit to your lord- 
ship's authority? Why am I now, or at any time, to address 
twelve of my equals, as I am now addressing you, with reverence 
and submission ? Under what sanction are the witnesses to give 
their evidence, Avithout which there can be no trial? Under 
what obligations can I call upon you, the jury representing your 
country, to administer justice? Surely upon no other than that 
you are sworn to administer it under the oaths you have taken. 
The whole judicial fabric, from the king's sovereign authority to 
the lowest office of magistracy, has no other foundation. The 
w^hole is built, both in form and substance, upon the same oath 
of every one of its ministers to do justice, as God shall help them 
hereafter. What Godf And what hereafter f That God, un- 
doubtedly, who has commanded kings to rule, and judges to 
decree with justice; who has said to witnesses, not only by the 
voice of nature, but in revealed commandments. Thou shalt not 
hear false witness against thy neighbor; and who has enforced 
obedience to them by the revelation of the unutterable blessings 
which shall attend their observance, and the awful punishments 
which shall await upon their transgression. 

But it seems this is an age of reason, and the time and the 
person are at last arrived that are to dissipate the errors which 
have overspread the past generations of ignorance. The be- 



1 Paine's Age of Reason. 
10 



110 ERSKINE. 

lievers in Christianity are many ; but it belongs to the few that 
are wise to correct their credulity. Belief is an act of reason, 
and superior reason may, therefore, dictate to the weak. In run- 
ning the mind over the long list of sincere and devout Christians, 
I cannot help lamenting that Newton had not lived to this day, 
to have had his shallowness filled up with this new flood of light. 
But the subject is too awful for irony. I will speak plainly and 
directly. Newton was a Christian, — Newton, whose mind burst 
forth from the fetters cast by nature upon our finite conceptions ; 
Newton, whose science was truth, and the foundation of whose 
knowledge of it was philosophy ; not those visionary and arro- 
gant assumptions which too often usurp its name, but philosophy 
resting upon the basis of mathematics, Avhich, like figures, cannot 
lie ; Newton, who carried the line and rule to the utmost barriers 
of creation, and explored the principles by which, no doubt, all 
created matter is held together and exists. 

But this extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, 
overlooked, perhaps, the errors which a minuter investigation of 
the created things on this earth might have taught him. What 
shall then be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who looked into the 
organic structure of all matter, even to the inanimate substances 
which the foot treads on ? Such a man may be supposed to have 
bee'n equally qualified with Mr. Paine "to look through nature 
up to nature's God ;" yet the result of all his contemplations was 
the most confirmed and devout belief in all which the other holds 
in contempt as despicable and drivelling superstition. 

But this error might perhaps arise from a want of due atten- 
tion to the foundations of human judgment and the structure of 
that understanding Avhich God has given us for the investigation 
of truth. Let that question be answered by Mr. Locke, who, to 
the highest pitch of devotion and adoration, was a Christian, — 
Mr. Locke, whose oflice was to detect the errors of thinking by 
going up to the very fountains of thought, and to direct into the 
proper track of reasoning the devious mind of man, by showing 
him its whole process, from the first perceptions of sense to the 
last conclusions of ratiocination ; putting a rein, besides, upon 
false opinion by practical rules for the conduct of human judg- 
ment. 

But these men, it may be said, were only deep thinkers, and 
lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world 
and to the laws which practically regulate mankind. Gentle- 
men, in the place where you now sit to administer the justice of 
this great country, above a century ago the never-to-be-forgotten 
Sir Matthew Hale presided, whose faith in Christianity is an 
exalted commentary upon its truth and reason, and whose life 
was a glorious example of its fruits in man ; administering human 
justice with a wisdom and purity drawn from the pure fountain 



JANE TAYLOR. 



Ill 



of the Christian dispensation, and which has been, and will be in 
all ages, a subject of the highest reverence and admiration. 

But it is said by Mr. Paine that the Christian fable is but the 
tale of the more ancient sujDcrstitions of the world, and may be 
easily detected by a proper understanding of the mythologies of 
the heathens. Did Milton understand those mythologies ? Was 
he less versed than Mr. Paine in the superstitions of the world ? 
No: they were the subject of his immortal song; and, though 
shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from 
the stores of a memory rich with all that man ever knew and 
laid them in their order as the illustration of that real and 
exalted faith, the unquestionable source of that fervid genius 
which has cast a sort of shade ujDon all the other works of man : 

" He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time : 
The living Throne, tlie sapphire blaze, 
Where angels tremble while they gaze, 
He saw ; but, blasted with excess of light, 
Closed his eyes in endless night." 

But it was the light of the body only that was extinguished : 
" The celestial light shone inward, and enabled him to justify the 
ways of God to man." The result of his thinking was, never- 
theless, not the same as Mr. Paine's. The mysterious incarnation 
of our blessed Saviour, — which the Age of Reason blasphemes in 
words so wholly unlit for the mouth of a Christian, or for the ear 
of a court of justice, that I dare not and will not give them utter- 
ance, — Milton made the grand conclusion of Paradise Lost, the 
rest of his finished labors, and the ultimate hope, expectation, 
and glory of the world. 

Thus you find all that is great or wise or splendid or illus- 
trious among created beings, all the minds gifted beyond ordi- 
nary nature, if not inspired by their universal Author for the 
advancement and dignity of the world, though divided by dis- 
tant ages and by clashing opinions, yet joining as it were in one 
sublime chorus to celebrate the truths of Christianity, and laying 
upon its holy altars the never-fading ofierings of their immortal 
wisdom. 



JANE TAYLOR, 1783-18U- 

Jaxe Taylor, the second daughter of Isaac Taylor,^ was born in London ou 
the 23d of September, 1783. As early as her eighth year, it is believed, she 
began to write verses, which she showed to no one but to her elder sister. In 



1 He, the father, " Isaac Taylor of Ongar," 
is the author of the following: — Addresses to 
Youth at School; Aiivice to the Teens; Book of 
Martyrs for the Young; Bunyan Explained to 
a Child'; Beginnings of British Biography; 



Character Essential to Success in Life ; Scenes 
in England; Hints to Youth leaving School; 
Wonders of Nature and Art; European Bio- 
graphy, &c. 



112 JANE TAYLOR. 

1796, Mr. Taylor felt it his duty to accept the earnest invitation of a Congrega- 
tional church at Colchester, in Essex, to become their pastor. Here he found 
an enlarged and a more intelligent society ; and when he had been there about 
two years, Jane, then about fifteen, formed, with her sister and six or eight 
young friends, a little society for the reading of original essays and the promo- 
tion of their intellectual improvement. In the spring of the year 1802, Jane 
visited London for the first time since her childhood. Here she formed various 
inestimable and lasting friendships, from which she derived, through the re- 
mainder of her life, much of her highest enjoyment, and to which she was 
wont to attribute the happiest influence upon her character. The first piece 
of hers which appeared in print was her poem of The Beggar's Boy, which was 
published in 1804 in a work called The Minor's Pocket-Book. The approba- 
tion it met with encouraged her to write more, and soon a little volume 
appeared, entitled Original Poems for Infant Minds, and another, Bhymes for 
the Nursery, in both of which she was assisted by her sister. These obtained 
extensive circulation, and will never die as long as there are infant minds 
to be happily and sweetly trained in knowledge and virtue. 

Towards the close of the year 1810, Mr. Taylor resigned his ministerial charge 
at Colchester, and soon removed with his family to Ongar, to become the pastor 
of the Congregational church there. In 1815, Jane published a tale on which 
she had been engaged for two or three years, called Display, which was re- 
ceived with very great favor; and the next year appeared her Essays in Bhyme 
on Morals and Manners. But soon her health began to give way under too 
constant application to study, and it became evident that her disease was 
of a pulmonary character. This, however, did not cause her to give up her 
pen ; for between 1816 and 1822 she contributed, from time to time, to the 
Youth's Magazine, a series of excellent pieces, under the signature of "Q. Q." 

During the latter years of Miss Taylor's life, notwithstanding her feeble 
health, she was constantly engaged in works of benevolence. She originated 
at Ongar a ladies' working society for the poor, became a constant and most 
laborious teacher in the Sunday-school, and gave instruction to the children 
of the poor, one afternoon in the week, in writing and arithmetic. During all 
this time her disease was making slow but sure progress, and it was evident 
that her end was near. Almost the last words she was able to utter, in her ex- 
treme weakness, were, on the morning of the 12th of April, 1824, "Though I 
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou 
art with me : Thy rod and Thy staflT, they comfort me." And on the evening 
of that day she calmly breathed her last. 

Of the character of Miss Taylor's writings there can be but one opinion. If 
conveying valuable instruction to the youthful mind in a pleasing and inte- 
resting manner, and impressing upon it the soundest principles of morality 
and religion in a style calculated to win the afiections and to determine the 
resolution to take the right path,— if this be doing good, then few will be found 
to have exerted a wider and purer influence, and' to have better "answered 
life's great end," than Jane Taylor of Ongar. 

THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES. 
A monk, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er, 
In the depth of his cell with its stone-cover'd floor, 
Eesigning to thought his chimerical brain, 
Forni'd the simple contrivance we now shall explain : 



JANE TAYLOR. 113 

In youth 'twas projected ; but years stole away, 
And ere 't^^iis complete he was wrinkled and gray ; 
But success is secure unless energy fails ; 
And at length he produced The FhUosopha^s Scales. 

What were they ? you ask : you shall presently see ; 
These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea ; 
Oh, no ; for such properties wondrous had they, 
That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh, 
Together witli articles small or immense, 
From mountains or planets to atoms of sense. 

The first thing he tried was the head of Voltaire, 
Which retain'd all the wit that had ever been there ; 
Asa weight, he threw in a torn scrap of a leaf 
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief; 
When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell 
As to bound like a ball on the roof of the cell. 

Next time he put in Alexander the Great, 
With a garment that Boreas had made, for a weight ; 
And though clad in armor from sandals to crown, 
The hero rose up, and the garment went down. 

A long row of almshouses, amply endow'd 
By a well-esteem' d Pharisee, busy and proud, 
Now loaded one scale, while the other was prest 
By those mites the poor widow dropp'd into the chest ; 
Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce, 
And down, down the farthing' s-worth came with a bounce. 

Again, he perform'd an experiment rare ; 
A monk, with austerities bleeding and bare, 
Climb'd into his scale ; in the other was laid 
The heart of our Howard, now partly decay' d ; 
When he found, with surprise, that the whole of his brother 
Weigh'd less, by some pounds, than this bit of the other. 

By further experiments (no matter how) 
He found that ten chariots weigh'd less than one plough ; 
A sword with gilt trappings rose up in the scale, 
Though balanced by only a tenpenny nail ; 
A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear, 
Weigh'd less than a widow's uncrystallized tear ; 
A lord and a lady went up at full sail. 
When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale ; 
Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl. 
Ten counsellors' wigs full of powder and curl, 
All heap'd in one balance, and swinging from thence, 
Weigh'd less than some atoms of candor and sense ; 
A first'Water diamond, with brilliants begirt,^ 
Than one good potato just wash'd from the dirt;^ 
Yet not mountains of silver and gold would suffice 
One pearl to outweigh : 'twas the '' pearl of great price." 

MORAL. 
Dear reader, if e'er self-deception prevails. 
We pray you to try The Philosopher's Scales; 
But if they are lost in the ruins around, 
Perhaps a good substitute thus may be found :— 
10* 



114 JANE TAYLOR. 

Let judgment and conscience in circles be cut, 

To ■yvhich strings of thought may be carefully put : 

Let these be made even with caution extreme, 

And impartiality use for a beam : 

Then bring those good actions which pride overrates, 

And tear up your motives to serve for the weights. 

LIFE. 

When sanguine youth the plain of life surveys, 
It does not calculate on rainy days ; 
Some, as they enter on the unknown way, 
Expect la7'ge troubles at a distant day ; 
The loss of wealth or friends they fondly prize, 
But reckon not on ills of smaller size, 
Those nameless, trifling ills that intervene, 
And people life, infesting every vScene, 
And there, with silent, unavow'd success, 
Wear off the keener edge of happiness : 
Those teasing swarms that buzz about our joys. 
More potent than the whirlwind that destroys ; 
Potent, with heavenly teaching, to attest 
Life is a pilgrimage, and not a rest. 

That lesson, learn'd aright, is valued more 
Than all Experience ever taught before ; 
For this her choicest secret, timely given, 
Is wisdom, virtue, happiness, and heaven. 
Long is religion view'd, by many an eye. 
As wanted nioi-e for safety by-and-by, 
A thing for times of danger and distress, 
Than needful for our present happiness; 
But after fruitless, wearisome assays 
To find repose and peace in other ways, 
The sicken'd soul, when Heaven imparts its grace, 
Beturns to seek its only resting-place. 
And sweet Experience proves, as years increase, 
That wisdom's ways are pleasantness and peace. 

THE PRESENT 3F0MENT ONLY OURS. 

It is said by a celebrated modern writer, " Take care of the 
minutes, and the hours Avill take care of themselves." This is an 
admirable hint, and might be very seasonably recollected when 
we begin to be " weary in well-doing," from the thought of having 
a great deal to do. The present is all we have to manage ; the 
past is irrecoverable ; the future is uncertain ; nor is it fair to 
burden one moment with the weight of the next. Sufficient unto 
the moment is the trouble thereof. If Ave had to w^alk a hundred 
miles, we still need set but one step at a time, and this process 
continued would infallibly bring us to our journey's end. Fatigue 
generally begins, and is always increased, by calculating in a- 
minute the exertion of hours. 

Thus, in looking forward to future life, let us recollect that we 
have not to sustain all its toil, to endure all its sufferings, or to 



BYRON. 115 

encounter all its crosses at once. One moment comes laden with 
its own little burden, then flies, and is succeeded by another no 
heavier than the last ; if 07ie could be sustained, so can another, 
and another. 

Even in looking forward to a single day, the spirit may some- 
times faint from an anticipation of the duties, the labors, the 
trials to temper and patience, that may be expected. Now, this 
is unjustly laying the burden of many thousand moments upon 
one. Let any one resolve to do right now, leaving theii to do as 
it can ; and if he were to live to the age of Methuselah he would 
never err. But the common error is to resolve to act right to- 
morroiv, or next time, but now, just this once, we must go on the 
same as ever. 

It seems easier to do right to-morrow than to-day, merely be- 
cause we forget that, when to-morrow comes, then will be now. 
Thus life passes, with many, in resolutions for the future which 
the present never fulfils. 

It is not thus with those who, ^^hj patient continuance in well- 
doing, seek for glory, honor, and immortality:" day by day, 
minute by minute, they execute the appointed task to which the 
requisite measure of time and strength is proportioned ; and 
thus, having worked while it was called day, they at length rest 
from their labors, and their " works follow them." 

Let us, then, " whatever our hands find to do, do it with all 
our might, recollecting that now is the proper and the accepted 
time." 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON, 17 88-182 J^. 

"In the year 1790 a profligate and dissipated captain in the Guards abandoned 
his wife and a little child of two years, in the stony wilderness of London. The 
officer's name was John Byron ; his wife was Catharine Gordon, of Gight in 
Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He went abroad, to die ; she went north to Aberdeen 
with her little lame boy, to live as well as she could on £130 a year. There, 
in Scottish schools, the boy receiyed his early education, until an announce- 
ment reached the small household tliat, by the death of 'his grand-uncle, 
'Geordie' was a lord, and the owner of Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire. 
At once his weak and capricious mother was seized with a desperate horror of 
her son's lameness, which had existed from his birth. In vain she tried quacks 
and doctors ; the foot remained unchangeably distorted, and to the last a look 
at the deformity stabbed Byron like a dagger." i 

After preparing for the university at Harrow School, he entered Trinity 
College, Cambridge, 1805, with a reputation for general information very rare 

1 See Collier's BiograpMcal Sketches. 



116 



BYRON. 



in one of his age. Indeed, we have his own record of an almost incredible list 
of works, in many departments of literature, which he had read before the 
age of fifteen. At the university he neglected the prescribed course of study, 
but was by no means idle. In 1807 appeared his first published work. 
Hours of Idleness, a collection of poems in no way remarkable, and now chiefly 
remembered through the castigation which it received from the Edinburgh 
Review. To this critique, which galled but did not dei>ress iiim, we owe the 
first spirited outbreak of his talents, in the satire entitled EiKjlish Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers, which was published in 1809. Able and vigorous as this was, 
and creditable to his talents, it contained so many harsh and capricious judg- 
ments that he was afterward anxious to suppress it. 

A few days before the publication of this satire he took his seat in the House 
of Lords; but he was ill qualified to shine in politics; and, seeing that he 
made no impression there, he soon left England for the continent. After two 
years of foreign travel, having lost his mother, he returned home in 1811, his 
private aftairs being very much embarrassed. He brought with him the first 
two cantos of Childe Harold, which he had written abroad. They were pub- 
lished in March, 1812, and were received by the public with the most un- 
bounded admiration; so that Byron emerged at once from a state of loneliness 
and neglect, unusual for one in his sphere of life, to be the magnet and idol 
of society. As he tersely says in his memoranda, "I awoke one morning, and 
found myself famous." In May of the next year appeared his Giaour ; and 
in November, the Bride of Ahydos (written in a week); and, about threo 
months afterward, the Corsair, written in the astonishingly short space of ten 
days. On the 2d of January, 1815, he was married to Miss Milbanke, the only 
daughter and heiress of Sir Ealph Milbanke, the only issue of which marriage 
was Augusta Ada, born on the 10th of December of that year. On the 15th of 
January of the next year the husband and wife separated forever. The cause 
of this was, and still is, a mystery. But most of those who composed the 
circles in which Lord Byron moved declared against him, and society with- 
drew its countenance. Deeply stung by the verdict, he resolved to leave his 
country, and on the 25th of April, 1816, he quitted England for the last time. 
His course was through Flanders, and along the Rhine to Switzerland, where 
he resided until the close of the year, and where he composed some of his 
most powerful works, — the third canto of Childe Harold, the Prisoner of Chillon, 
Darkness, The Dream, part of Manfred, and a few minor poems. The next 
year he went to Italy, where, for a course of years, he gave himself up to the 
grossest species of libertinism, and where he wrote his last and most dangerous 
work, Don Juan; but, with all its licentiousness, it is interspersed with pass- 
ages of exquisite sweetness and beauty.^ 

In 1823 he interested himself warmly in the cause of the Greeks, then strug= 
gling to throw off the Turkish yoke, and in December of that year sailed for 
Greece, with all the funds he could command, to aid the oppressed in their 
efforts for freedom. This was certainly a redeeming trait in his character, and 
we are glad to record it, as it throws a brighter light upon his closing days. 
On the 5th of January, 1824, he arrived at Missolonghi, where his reception 



1 " At Venice, at Ravenna, at Pisa, and at 
Rome, be lived a wicked and most irregular 
life, writing many poems, for which he received 
many thousand pounds; but descending, as 



be sank morally, into a fitful and frequently 
morbid style, too often poisoned with reckless 
blasphemy and unconcealed licentiousness."— « 

COLHER, 



BYRON. 



117 



was enthusiastic, the whole population coming out to meet him. But he had 
scarcely arranged his plans to aid the nation he had so befriended, when he 
was seized with a fever, and expired on the 19th of April, 1824.^ 

Of the character of Lord Byron's poetry there can be but one opinion in 
every honest and pure mind: — that, while it exhibits powers of description 
unusually great, is full of passages of exquisite beauty, and has some that 
are truly sublime; that while it gives abundant evidence of the richness and 
variety of his genius, and is characterized by intense feeling and energy, it 
cannot, as a whole, be read without an injurious influence upon the moral 
sensibilities. It is colored by that combination of reckless gayety, despond- 
ency, and misanthropy, which is a sure token of a mind ill at ease, and which, 
unhappily, reflected only too accurately the character of the bard himself; and 
the tendency of his writings is and must be to shake our confidence in virtue, 
to diminish our abhorrence of vice, to palliate crime, and to unsettle our notions 
of right and wrong.^ 

THE BYING GLADIATOR. 

I see before me the gladiator lie : 
He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low ; 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
The arena swims around him ; he is gone, 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which liail'd the wretch who won. 



He heard it, but he heeded not ; his eyes 
Were with his heart, and that Avas far away : 
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize ; 
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
There were his young barbarians all at play, 
There was their Dacian mother, — he, their sire, 
Biitcher'd to make a Roman holiday. 
All this rush'd with his blood. Shall he expire, 
And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire ! 



1 " We are to remember that the period of 
our lives is not so peremptorily determined by 
God, but that we may lengthen or shorten 
them, live longer or die sooner, according as 
we behave ourselves in this world. Thus, some 
men destroy a healthful and vigorous consti- 
tution of body by intemperance' and lust, and 
do as manifestly kill themselves as those who 
hang, or poison, or drown themselves." — 
Sherlock. 

2 " I admire the sublimity of his genius. 
But I have feared, and do still fear, the conse- 
quences, — the inevitable consequences of his 
writings. I fear that in our enthusiastic ad- 
miration of genius, our idolatry of poetry, the 
awful impiety aud the staggeiing unbelief 



contained in those writings are lightly passed 
over, and acquiesced in, as the allowable aber- 
rations of a master intellect, which had lifted 
itself above the ordinary world, which had 
broken down the barriers of ordinary mind, 
and which revelled in a creation of its own ; 
a world, over which the sunshine of imagina- 
tion lightened at times with an almost ineftablo 
glory, to be succeeded by the tliick blackness 
of doubt, and terror, and misanthropy, relieved 
only by the lightning flashes of terrible and 
unholy passion." — J. G. Whittier. Read ar- 
ticles in Encyclnpsedia Britannica, in Whh'pt.e's 
Essays, in Bayne, First Series, and in Prof. 
Wilson's Essays, vol. i. 



118 BYROK 



APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes. 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar ; 
I love not man the less, but nature more. 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before, 
To mingle with the universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore ; upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own. 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain. 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, — 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoflin'd, and unknown. 
* -x- -Sfr * -x- * * 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee : — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 
Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : not so thou ; 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play. 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow : 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time. 
Calm or convulsed, — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving ; boundless, endless, and sublime, — 
The image of Eternity, — the throne 
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

And I have loved thee. Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wanton' d with thy breakers, — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear ; 
For I was, as it were, a child of tliee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane, — as I do here. 

FAREWELL. 

Farewell ! if ever fondest prayer 
For others' weal avail' d on high, 

Mine will not be lost in air, 

But waft thy name beyond the sky. 



BYRON. 



119 



'Twere vain to speak, — to weep, — to sigh : 
Oh ! more than tears of blood can tell, 

When wrnng from gnilt's expiring eye, 
Are in that word, — Farewell ! — Farewell ! 

These lips are mute, these eyes are dry ; 

But in my breast and in my brain 
Awake the pangs that pass not by, 

The thought that ne'er shall sleep again. 
My soul nor deigns nor dares complain, 

Though grief and passion there rebel: 
I only know we loved in vain, — 

I only feel — Farewell ! — Farewell ! 

NIGHT AT CORINTH.^ 

'Tis midnight : on the mountains brown 
The cold round moon shines deeply down ; 
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky 
Spreads like an ocean hung on high, 
Bespangled with those isles of light. 
So Avidely, spiritually bright ; 
Who ever gazed upon them shining. 
And turn'd to earth without repining, 
Nor wish'd for wings to flee away 
And mix with their eternal ray ? 
The waves on either shore lay there 
Calm, clear, and azure as the air; 
And scarce their foam the pebbles shook, 
But murmur'd meekly as the brook. 
The winds were pillow' d on the waves ; 
The banners droop' d along their staves, 
And, as they fell around them furling. 
Above them shone the crescent curling ; 
And that deep silence was unbroke. 
Save where the watch his signal spoke, 
Save where the steed neigh'd oft and shrill, 
And echo answer'd from the hill. 
And the wild hum of that wild host 
Rustled like leaves from coast to coast, 
As rose the Muezzin's^ voice in air 
In midnight call to wonted prayer. 



A CALM NIGHT AT LAKE GENEVA. 

Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, 
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 



1 In 1715 Corinth, then in the possession of 
the Venetians, was besieged by the Turks. In 
the Siege of Corinth Byron describes one of 
the delicious nights of that fine climate. 



2 The Muezzin's voice. The Turks do not 
use bells to summon the religious to their de- 
votions. They have an appointed person whose 
function it is to send forth, to the extent of his 
voice, the call to wonted prayer. 



120 BYRON. 

To waft me from distraction ; once I loved 
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved 
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. 

It is the hush of night, and all between 
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 
Save darken' d Jura, whose capt heights appear 
Precipitously steep ; and, drawing near, 
There breathes a living fragrance, from the shore, 
Of flowers, yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-niglit carol more ; 

He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; 
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the hill ; 
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
All silently their tears of love instil, 
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues, 

AN ALPINE ST0E3I AT LAKE GENEVA. 

The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! O night, 
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 

And this is in the night : — most glorious night ! 
Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 
A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea. 
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth I 
And now again 'tis black, — and now the glee 
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth. 
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 

LIBERTY. 

Eternal spirit of the chainless Mind ! 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art ! 

For there thy habitation is the heart, — 
The heart, which love of thee alone can bind ; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consign' d, — 

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 

Tlieir country conquers Avith their martyrdom. 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 



BYEOJSr. 



121 



Chillon ! thy prison is a lioly place, 

And thy sad floor an altar, — for 'twas trod, 

Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod. 

By Bonnivard ! — May none those marks efface ! 
For they appeal from tyranny to God. 

3I0DERN GREECE.'^ 

He who hath bent him o'er the dead, 

Ere the first day of death is fled, 

Before decay's effacing fingers 

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers ; 

And mark'd the mild angelic air, 

The rapture of repose that's there. 

The fix'd yet tender traits that streak 

The languor of the placid cheek ; 

And but for that sad shrouded eye. 

That fires not, wins not, weeps not now ; 

And but for that chill, changeless brow, ' 

Where cold obstruction's^ apatliy 

Appalls the gazing mourner's heart, 

As if to him it could impart 

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon ; 

Yes, but for these, and these alone. 

Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour, 

He still might doubt the tyrant's power ; 

So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd. 

The first — last look — by death reveal'd ! 

Such is the asi:)ect of this shore : — 

'Tis Greece, — but living Greece no more I-^ 

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, 

We start, — for soul is wanting there. 

Hers is the loveliness in death. 

That parts not quite with parting breath. 

But beauty with that fearful bloom. 

That hue which haunts it to the tomb, — 

Expression's last receding ray, 

A gilded halo hovering round decay. 

The farewell beam of feeling past away ! 
Spark of that flame — perchance of heavenly birth — 
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth ! 
Clime of the unforgotten brave !* 

Whose land from plain to mountain-cave 

Was freedom's home or glory's grave ! 



1 " There is perhaps no instance in our 
poetical literature in which a continued simile 
is so beautifully siistaiiied as that wliich runs 
through these lines. The affecting picture of 
the lovely form, no longer animated by the 
living spirit, deeply touching in itself, derives 
a new interest from its exquisite adaptation 
to the subject which suggested it. The music 
of the rhythm, too, — so soft, so delicately mo- 
dulated,— floats like a requiem over the whole, 
and leaves nothing to be desired in consum- 
mating the etfect." — Payne. 

2 Cold ohstructimi. This expi'ession is taken 
from Shakspeare. who speaks of the dead as 



" lying in cold obstruction," in allusion to the 
stoppage of the animal functions. 

3 The following passage, froni Gillies'a His- 
tory of Greece, is thought to have suggested 
the above comparison : — "The present state 
of Greece, compared to the ancient, is the 
silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with 
the vivid lustre of active life." 

* The transition here to another variation 
of the same theme, by a change of key, as it 
were, is very striking. The energy of these 
lines is as remarkable as the pathos of the 
preceding. 



11 



122 BYRON. 

Shrine of the mighty ! can it be 
That this is all remains of thee? 
Approach, thou craven, crouching slave, 

Say, is not this Thermopylae?^ 
These waters blue that round you lave, 

Oh, servile o'fispring of the free, 
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this ? 
The gulf, the rock of Salamis V- 
These scenes, their story not unknown. 
Arise, and make again your own ; 
Snatch from the ashes of your sires 
The embers of their former fires ; 
And he who in the strife expires 
Will add to theirs a name of fear 
That tyranny shall quake to hear, 
And leave his sons a hope, a fame, 
They too will rather die than shame : 
For freedom's battle once begun, 
Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son, 
Though baffled oft, is ever won. 
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page, 
Attest it many a deathless age ! 
While kings, in dusty darkness hid. 
Have left a nameless pyramid. 
Thy heroes, though the general doom 
Hath sAvept the column from their tomb, 
A mightier monument command, — 
Tlie mountains of their native land ! 
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye 
The graves of those that cannot die ! 
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace 
l]ach step from splendor to disgrace ; 
Enough, — no foreign foe could quell 
Thy soul, till from itself it fell ; 
Yes ! self-abasement paved the way 
To villain-bonds and despot sway. 

SOLITUDE. 

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 

To slowly trace the forest's shady scene. 
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 

And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely, been ; 

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 
With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; 

Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; 
This is not solitude ; — 'tis but to hold 
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd. 

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, 

To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, 
And roam along, the world's tired denizen, 

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless ; 

Minions of splendor shrinking from distress ! 

I Thermop2/Ife. Salamis. An instance of tbe I were remarkable: the simple mention of 
suggestive power of a name. No description them is enough. 
Is given of the deeds for which these places \ 



BYRON. 123 



None tliat, witli kindred consciousness endued, 
If we were not, would seem to smile the less 
Of all that flatter'd, follow' d, sought, and sued ; 
This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude ! 



DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. 

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still ! 

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide. 
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride : 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock -beating surf. 

And there lay the rider distorted and pale. 
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail ; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail. 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword. 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 



THE EAST. 

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle 
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime, 

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, 
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? 

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine. 

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; 

Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume, 

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom ; 

Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit. 

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute ; 

Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky. 

In color though varied, in beauty may vie, 

And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye ; 

Where the virgins are soft as the roses tliey tAvine, 

And all, save the spirit of man, is divine? 

'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the sun, — 

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done? 

Oh ! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell 

Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell. 



124 



BYRON. 



THE EVE OF THE BATTLE.^ 

There was a sound of revelry by night,^ 
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then 
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; 
A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage bell ; 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! 

Did ye not hear it? — No; 'twas but the wind, 
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street; 
On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ; 
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet 
To chase the glowing houi-s with flying feet. 
But hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! 
Arm ! arm ! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar ! 



Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all i)ale, which but an hour ago 
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness; 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts ; and choking sighs. 
Which ne'er might be repeated : Avho could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes. 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ! 

And there was mounting in hot haste ; the steed, 

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed. 

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; 

And the deep thunder, peal on peal, afar; 

And, near, the beat of the alarming drum 

Eoused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 

While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb. 
Or whispering with white lips, — *' The foe ! They come ! they come !" 
* -Sfr * * * -Sf * 

And Ardennes^ waves above them her green leaves, 

Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 

Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves. 

Over the unre turning brave, — alas! 

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass, 



1 The battle of Quatre Bras is here referred 
to, not that of Waterloo, which took place two 
days after. 

2 On the night previous to the action, a ball 
was given at Brussels, by the Duchess of Rich- 
mond. Most of the English officers were 
present, but retired — pursuant to directions 



previously received from the Duke of Wel- 
lington — at ten o'clock, to take the posts as- 
signed them. 

3 Ai-dennes — put here for the wood of Soi- 
gnies, which was thought to have anciently 
formed part of the Sylva Arduenua, after- 
wards called the Forest of Ardennes. 



BYRON. 



125 



Wliich now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
Of living valor, rolling on the foe 
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 
Last eve in beauty's circle proudly gay. 
The midnight brought the signal sound of strife, 
The morn, the marshalling in arms — the day, 
Battle's magnificently stern array ! 
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which, when rent. 
The earth is covered thick with other clay, 
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, 
Rider, and horse, friend, foe, in one red bmial blent.^ 

THE COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT. 

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops 
Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful ! 
I linger yet with Nature, for the night 
Hath been to me a more familiar face 
Than that of man ; and in her starry shade 
Of dim and solitary loveliness, 
I learn'd the language of another world. 
I do remember me, that in my youth, 
When I was wandering, upon such a night 
I stood within the Coliseum's Avail, 
Midst the chief relics of all-mighty Eome: 
The trees which grew along the broken arches 
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars 
Shone through the rents of ruin ; from afar 
The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and, 
More near, from out the Csesars' palace came 
The owl's long cry ; and, interruptedly, , 

Of distant sentinels the fitful song 
Begun and died upon the gentle wind. 
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach 
Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood 
Within a bowshot. AVhere the Caesars dwelt, 
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst 
A grove which springs through levell'd battlements 
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, 
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth; 
But the gladiators' bloody circus stands 
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection ! 
While Cffisar's chambers and the Augustan halls 
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. 
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon 
All this, and cast a wide and tender light. 
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity 
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up. 



1 " Childe Harold, though he shuns to cele- 
brate the victory of Waterloo, gives us here a 
most beautiful description of the evening 
which preceded the battle of Quatre Bras, the 
alarm which called out the troops, and the 



hurry and confusion which preceded their 
march. I am not sure that any verses in our 
language surpass, in vigor and in feeling, 
this most beautiful description." — Sir Walter 

Scott. 



11* 



126 BYE ON. 

As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries ; 
Leaving that beautiful which still was so, 
And making that which was not, till the j)lace 
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er 
With silent worship of the great of old, — 
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns ! 

THEE3I0PYL^. 

They fell devoted, but undying ; 
The very gale their names seem'd sighing ; 
The waters murmur'd of their name, 
The woods were peopled with their fame ; 
The silent pillar, lone and gray, 
Claim'd kindred with their sacred clay; 
Their spirits wrapp'd the dusky mountain, 
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain ; 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river, 
Eolls mingling with their fame forever. 
Despite of every yoke she bears. 
That land is glory's still and theirs ! 
'Tis still a watchword to the earth: 
When man would do a deed of worth, 
He points to Greece, and turns to tread, 
So sanction'd, on the tyrant's head : 
He looks to her, and rushes on 
Where life is lost, or freedom won. 

A SHIPWRECK, 

The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had 

Been stove in the beginning of the gale ; 
And the long-boat's condition was but bad. 

As there were but two blankets for a sail, 
And one oar for a mast, which a young lad 

Threw in by good luck over the ship's rail; 
And two boats could not hold, far less be stored 
To save, one-half the people then on board. 
* * * -Jfr -x- * 

At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hen-coops, spars, 

And all things for a chance, had been cast loose, 
That still could keep afloat the struggling tars, — 

For yet they strove, although of no great use : 
There was no light in heaven but a few stars ; 

The boats put ofi" o'ercrowded with their crews; 
She gave a heel, and then a lurcli to port. 
And, going down head-foremost, — sunk, in short. 

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell ! 

Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave; 
Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell. 

As eager to anticipate their grave ; 
And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell. 

And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave, 
Like one who grapples with his enemy, 
And strives to strangle him before he die. 



BYROlSr. 127 

And first one universal shriek tliere rusli'd, 

Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash 
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd, 

Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash 
Of billows ; but at intervals there gush'd, 

Accompanied Avith a convulsive splash, 
A solitary shriek, — the bubbling cry 
Of some strong swimmer in his agony. 

* * -Sfr -Jfr * -Sfr 

There were two fathers in this ghastly crew, 

And with them their two sons, of whom the one 

Was more robust and hardy to the view, 
But he died early ; and when he was gone 

His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw 

One glance on him, and said, " Heaven's will be done ! 

I can do nothing !" and he saw him thrown 

Into the deep, without a tear or groan. 

The other father had a weaklier child, 

Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate ; 
But the boy bore up long, and with a mild 

And patient spirit, held aloof his fate ; 
Little he said, and now and then he smiled, 

As if to win a part from otF the weight 
He saw increasing on his father's heart, 
With the deep deadly thought that they must part. 

And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised 

His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam 
From his pale Iij)s, and ever on him gazed ; 

And when the wish'd-for shower at length was come, 
And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, 

Brighten'd, and for a moment seem'd to roam, 
He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain 
Into his dying child's mouth — but in vain. 

The boy expired — the father held the clay, 

And look'd upon it long, and when at last 
Death left no doubt, and the dead burden lay 

Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past, 
He watch'd it wistfully, until away 

'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast ; 
Then he himself sunk down, all dumb and shivering, 
And gave no signs of life, save his limbs quivering. 

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. 

She walks in beauty, like the night 

Of cloudless climes and starry skies ; 
And all that's best of dark and bright 

Meet in her aspect and her eyes : 
Thus mellow'd to that tender light 

Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less. 

Had half impair' d the nameless grace 
Which waves in every raven tress, 

Or softly lightens o'er her face, 



128 BYRON. 

Where thoughts serenely sweet express 
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, 

So soft, so calm, so eloquent, 
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 

But tell of days in goodness spent, 
A mind at peace with all below, 

A heart whose love is innocent. 

31 A N'S IM3J0E TALIT Y. 

When coldness wraps this suffering clay, 

Ah, whither strays the immortal mind ? 
It cannot die, — it cannot stay. 

But leaves its darken' d dust behind. 
Then, unembodied, doth it trace 

By steps each planet's heavenly way? 
Or fill at once the realms of space, 

A thing of eyes, that all survey ? 

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, 

A thought unseen, but seeing all, — 
All, all in earth or skies display'd, • 

Shall it survey, shall it recall : 
Each fainter trace that memory holds 

So darkly of departed years. 
In one broad glance the soul beholds, 

And all that was, at once appears. 

Before Creation peopled earth, 

Its eye shall roll through chaos back ; 
And where the furthest heaven had birth, 

The spirit trace its rising track ; 
And where the future mars or makes, 

Its glance dilate o'er all to be, 
While sun is quench' d or system breaks, 

Fix'd in its oa\ti eternity. 

Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, 

It lives all passionless and pure : 
An age shall fleet like earthly year ; 

Its years as moments shall endure. 
Away, away, without a wing. 

O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly; 
A nameless and eternal thing. 

Forgetting what it was to die. 

TO THE 3IE3fORY OF HENRY KIEKE WHITE 

. Bright be the place of thy soul ! 

No lovelier spirit than thine 
E'er burst from its mortal control. 

In the orbs of the blessed to shine. 
On earth thou wert all but divine, 

As thy soul shall immortally be ; 
And our sorrow may cease to repine _ 

When we know that thy God is with thee. 



ANNA LuETITIA BARBAULD. 129 

Light be the turf of thy tomb ! 

May its verdure like emeralds be ! 
There should not be the shadow of gloom 

In aught that reminds us of thee. 
Young flowers and an evergreen tree 

May spring from the spot of thy rest, — 
But nor cypress nor yew let us see ; 

For why should we mourn for the blest ? 



ANNA LjETITIA BARBAULD, 17Jf.S-1826. 

Anna L^titia Barbaui^d, a name dear to the admirers of genius and the 
lovers of virtue, was the eldest child and only daughter of the Rev, Joha 
Aikin, master of a boys' school in the village of Kibworth Harcourt, in Leices- 
tershire, and was born in that place, 1743. Her education was conducted by 
her father, and was of a very solid character; and though at that day there 
was a strong prejudice against imparting to females any tincture of classical 
learning, she devoted a portion of her time to the study of Latin, and before 
she was fifteen she had read many autliors in that language with pleasure and 
advantage : nor did she rest satisfied without gaining some acquaintance with 
the Greek. 

In 1758, when she was fifteen, her father removed from the somewhat obscure 
village of Kibworth, to take charge of the classical department in the " dis- 
senting" academy at Warrington, in Lancashire, to which he had been in- 
vited; and where, in the cultivated society of this place, she found most con- 
genial associates. In 1773 she collected the various poems she had from time 
to time written, and arranged them for publication. These were so well re- 
ceived that four editions were called for within that year. 

In 1774, Miss Aikin was married to the Eev. Rochemond Barbauld, a de- 
scendant from a family of French Protestants. Soon after this, Mr. Barbauld 
opened a boarding-school for boys in the village of Palgrave, in Sufiblk. The 
rapid and uninterrupted success which crowned this undertaking was doubt- 
less owing, in a great measure, to the literary celebrity attached to the name 
of Mrs. Barbauld, who took part with her husband in the business of instruc- 
tion. It was for the benefit of the younger class of scholars that she composed 
her Hymns in Prose for Children. "The business of tuition, however," says her 
biographer. Miss Aikin, " to those by whom it is faithfully and zealously exer- 
cised, must ever be fatiguing beyond almost any other occupation ; and Mr. 
and Mrs. Barbauld found their health and spirits so much impaired by their 
exertions that, at the end of eleven years, they determined uj^on quitting Pal- 
grave and allowing themselves an interval of comj)lete relaxation before they 
should again embark in any scheme of active life." Accordingly, in the 
autumn of 1785 they embarked for the continent, and, after spending nearly 
a year in Switzerland and France, returned to England in June, 1786, In the 
spring of the next year, Mr. Barbauld was elected pastor of a "dissenting" 
congregation in Hampstead, where for several years he received a few lads as 
pupils, while Mrs. B. gave instruction to two or three girls. But her pen 
did not long remain idle. In 1790 and in the few subsequent years appeared 



130 ANNA L^TITIA BARBAULD. 

her Poetical Epistle to Mr. Wilberforce on the rejection of his bill for abolishing 
the slave-trade; her JRetnarks on Mr: Gilbert Wakejield's Inquiry into the Expe- 
diency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship ; and her Sins of Government, 
Sins of the Nation, <&c. 

In 1802, Mr. Barbauld accepted an invitation to become pastor of the congre- 
gation at Newington Green ; and, quitting Hampstead, they took up their abode 
in the village of Stoke Newington. In 1804 she offered to the public Selections 
from the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and Freeholder, with a Preliminary Essay. 
This essay has ever been considered a very fine piece of criticism, and the 
most successful of her efforts in that department of literature. Hitherto Mrs. 
Barbauld's life had been almost one vminterrupted course of happiness and 
prosperity. But she was soon to experience one of the severest of all trials, in 
the loss of her husband, who, after a lingering illness, expired on the 11th of 
November, 1808. A beautiful memoir of his character, doubtless from her pen, 
appeared shortly after in the Monthly Repository of Theology and General Litera- 
ture; and in her poem oi Eighteen Hundred and Eleven she touchingly alludes to 

" That sad death whence most affection bleeds." 

Mrs. Barbauld published but little after this : a gentle and scarcely perceptible 
decline was now sloping for herself the passage to the tomb; and on the morn- 
ing of March 9, 1825, after a few days' illness, she expired without a struggle, 
in the eighty-second year of her age. 

To claim for Mrs. Barbauld the i:)raise of purity and elevation of mind, might 
well appear superfluous. She is decidedly one of the most eminent female 
writers that England has produced ; and both in prose and poetry she takes 
a high rank. Her prose style is very easy and graceful, calculated to engage 
alike the most common and the most elevated understanding. Her poems 
are addressed more to the feelings than to the imagination; but their lan- 
guage never becomes prosaic, and has beauty and j^athos, without bombast or 
affectation. Her hymns are among the best sacred lyrics in the language; 
and it has been justly said of her that "the spirit of piety and. benevolence 
that breathes through her works pei-vaded her life.''^ 

ON EDUCATION 

The first thing to be considered with respect to education is the 
object of it. This ai:)pears to me to have been generally misunder- 
stood. Education, in its largest sense, is a thing of great scope 
and extent. It includes the whole process by which a human 
being is formed to be what he is, in habits, principles, and culti- 
vation of every kind. But of this, a very small part is in the 
power even of the parent himself; a smaller still can be directed 
by purchased tuition of any kind. You engage for your child 
masters and tutors at large salaries ; and you do well, for they 
are competent to instruct him : they will give him the means, at 
least, of acquiring science and accomplishments ; but in the busi- 
ness of education, properly so called, they can do little for you. 
Do you ask, then, what will educate your son ? Your example 



1 Read a Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld by Miss Lucy Aikin. 



ANNA L^TITIA BARBAVLD. 131 

■will educate him : your conversation with your friends, the busi- 
ness he sees you transact, the likings and dislikings you express, 
— these will educate him : the society you live in will educate 
him ; your domestics will educate him ; above all, your rank and 
situation in life, your house, your table, will educate him. It is 
not in your power to withdraw him from the continual influence 
of these things, excej^t you Avere to withdraw yourself from them 
also. You speak of beginning the education of your son. The 
moment he was able to form an idea, his education was already 
begun ; the education of circumstances, — insensible education, — ■ 
which, like insensible perspiration, is of more constant and power- 
ful effect, and of infinitely more consequence to the habit, than that 
which is direct and apparent. This education goes on at every 
instant of time ; it goes on like time ; you can neither stop it nor 
turn its course. What these have a tendency to make your 
child, that he will be. Maxims and documents are good pre- 
cisely till they are tried, and no longer : they will teach him to 
talk, and nothing more. The eircumstances in which your son is 
placed will be even more prevalent than your example ; and you 
have no right to expect him to become what you yourself are, 
but by the same means. You that have toiled during youth to 
set your son upon higher ground and to enable him to begin 
where you left ofi", do not expect that son to be what you wer'fe, — • 
diligent, modest, active, simple in his tastes, fertile in resources. 
You have put him under quite a different master. Poverty edu- 
cated you; wealth will educate him. You cannot suppose the 
result will be the same. You must not even exjDyect that he w^ill 
be what you now are; for, though relaxed, perhaps, from the 
severity of your frugal habits, you still derive advantage from 
having formed them ; and, in your heart, you like plain dinners, 
and early hours, and old friends, whenever your fortune will per- 
mit you to enjoy them. But it will not be so with your son : his 
tastes will be formed by your present situation, and in no degree 
by your former one. You are sensible of the benefit of early 
rising ; and you may, if you please, make it a point that your 
daughter and your son shall retire at the hour when you are pre- 
paring to see company. But their sleep, in the first place, will 
not be so sweet and undisturbed amid the rattle of carriages, and 
the glare of tapers glancing through the rooms, as that of the 
village child in his quiet cottage, protected by silence and dark- 
ness ; and, moreover, you may depend upon it that, as the coercive 
power of education is laid aside, they will in a few months .slide 
into the habitudes of the rest of the family, whose hours are de- 
termined by their company and situation in life. You have, 
however, done good, as far as it goes : it is something gained to 
defer pernicious habits, if we cannot prevent them. 

There is nothing which has so little share in education as direct 



132 ANNA LjETITIA BARBAULD. 

precept. I do not mean to assert that sentiments inculcated in 
education have no influence; they have much, though not the 
most : but it is the sentiments we let drop occasionally, the con- 
versation they overhear when playing unnoticed in a corner of 
the room, which has an efiect upon children ; and not what is 
addressed directly to them in the tone of exhortation. If you 
would know precisely the effect these set discourses have upon 
your child, be pleased to reflect upon that which a discourse from 
the pulpit, which you have reason to think merely professional, 
has upon you. Children have almost an intuitive discernment 
between the maxims you bring forward for their use, and those 
by Avhich you direct your own conduct. Be as cunning as you 
will, they are always more cunning than you. Every child knows 
wdiom his fiither and mother love and see with j)leasure, and whom 
they dislike ; for whom they think themselves obliged to set out 
their best plate and china; whom they think it an honor to 
visit, and upon whom they confer honor by admitting them to 
their company. " Respect nothing so much as virtue," says Eu- 
genio to his son ; " virtue and talents are the only grounds of dis- 
tinction." The child presently has occasion to inquire why his 
father pulls off* his hat to some jDeople, and not to others : he is 
told that outward respect must be proportioned to different sta- 
tions' in life. This is a little difficult of comprehension : however, 
by dint of explanation, he gets over it tolerably well. But he 
sees his father's house in the bustle and hurry of preparation; 
common business laid aside, everybody in movement, an unusual 
anxiety to please and to shine. Nobody is at leisure to receive 
his caresses or attend to his questions ; his lessons are interrupted, 
his hours deranged. At length a guest arrives : it is my Lord 

■ , whom he has heard you speak of twenty times as one of the 

most worthless charactei*s upon earth. Your child, Eugenio, has 
received a lesson of education. Resume, if you will, your sys- 
tems of morality on the morrow; you will in vain attempt to 
eradicate it. " You expect company, mamma : musri be dressed 
to-day ?" " No ; it is only good Mrs. Such-a-one." Your child 
has received a lesson of education; one which he well under- 
stands, and v*'ill long remember. 

But the education of your house, important as it is, is only a 
part of a more comprehensive system. Providence takes your 
child where you leave him. Providence continues his education 
upon a larger scale, and by a process which includes means far 
more .efficacious. Has your son entered the world at eighteen, 
opinionated, haughty, rash, inclined to dissipation? Do not 
despair ; he may yet be cured of these faults, if it pleases Heaven. 
There are remedies Which you could not persuade yourself to use, 
if they were in your power, and which are specific in cases of this 
kind. How often do we see the presumptuous, giddy youth 



ANNA L^TITIA BARBAULD. 133 

clianged into the wise counsellor, the considerate, steady friend ! 
How often the thoughtless, gay girl into the sober wife, the 
affectionate mother! Faded beauty, humbled self-consequence, 
disappointed ambition, loss of fortune, — this is the rough physic 
provided by Providence to meliorate the temper, to correct the 
offensive petulancies of youth, and bring out all the energies of 
the finished character. Afflictions soften the proud ; difficulties 
push forward the ingenious ; successful industry gives con- 
sequence and credit, and develops a thousand latent good quali- 
ties. There is no malady of the mind so inveterate, which this 
• education of events is not calculated to cure, if life were long 
enough ; and shall we not hope that He, in whose hand are all 
the remedial processes of nature, wdll renew the discipline in 
another state, and finish the imperfect man ? 

AGAINST INCONSISTENCY IN EXPECTATIONS.^ 

As most of the unhappiness in the world arises rather from 
disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of the utmost 
consequence to attain just notions of the laws and order of the 
universe, that we may not vex ourselves wdth fruitless wishes, or 
give way to groundless and unreasonable discontent. No man 
expects to preserve orange-trees in the open air through an Eng- 
lish winter ; or when he has planted an acorn, to see it become a 
large oak in a few months. Now, upon an accurate inspection, 
we shall find, in the moral government of the world, and the 
order of the intellectual system, laws as determinate, fixed, and 
invariable as any in Newton's Principia. The progress of vegeta- 
tion is not more certain than the growth of habit; nor is the 
power of attraction more clearly proved than the force of affec- 
tion or the influence of example. The man, therefore, who has 
well studied the operations of nature in mind as well as matter, 
will acquire a certain moderation and equity in his claims upon 
Providence. He never wdll be disappointed either in himself or 
others. He will act wath precision, and expect that effect, and 
that alone, from his efforts, which they are naturally adapted to 
produce. For want of this, men of merit and integrity often 
censure the dispositions of Providence for suffering characters 
they despise to run away with advantages which, they yet know, 
are purchased by such means as a high and noble spirit could 
never submit to. If you refuse to pay the price, why expect the 
purchase? AYe should consider this w^orld as a great mart of 
commerce, where fortune exposes to our view various commodi- 
ties, riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Every 

1 Charles Lamb cherished great respect for | consistent Expectations," as alike bold and 
Mrs. Barbauld's power as a true English prose original in thought and elegant in style. See 
vriter, and spoke often of her "Essay on In- | Lamb's Works, vol. i. p. 182. 

12 



134 ANNA L^TITIA BARBAULD. 

thing is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labor, our 
ingenuity, is so much ready money which we are to lay out to 
the best advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but 
stand to your own judgment; and do not, like children, when you 
have purchased one thing, repine that you do not possess another 
which you did not purchase. Such is the force of well-regulated 
industry, that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties, 
directed to one end, will generally insure success. Would you, 
for instance, be rich? Do you think that single point worth the 
sacrificing every thing else to? You may then be rich. Thou- 
sands have become so from the lowest beginnings, by toil, and ^ 
patient diligence, and attention to the minutest articles of ex- 
pense and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of leisure, 
of a vacant mind, of a free, unsuspicious temper. If you pre- 
serve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. 
Those high and lofty notions of morals which you brought with 
you from the schools must be considerably lowered, and mixed 
with the baser alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded prudence. 
You must learn to do hard, if not unjust, things ; and for the 
nice embarrassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is 
necessary for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. You 
must shut your heart against the Muses, and be content to feed 
your understanding with plain, household truths. In short, you 
must not attempt to enlarge your ideas, or polish your taste, or 
refine your sentiments, but must keep on in one beaten track, 
without turning aside either to the right hand or to the left. 
" But I cannot submit to drudgery like this ; I feel a spirit 
above it." 'Tis well : be above it, then ; only do not repine that 
you are not rich. 

Is knowledge the pearl of price ? That, too, may be purchased, 
— by steady application, and long, solitary hours of study and 
reflection. Bestow these, and you shall be wdse. " But," says 
the man of letters, " what a hardship is it that many an illiterate 
fellow who cannot construe the motto of the arms on his coach, 
shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have little more 
than the common conveniences of life !" But was it in order to 
raise a fortune that you consumed the sprightly hours of youth 
in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale 
over the midnight lamp and distilled the sweetness from the 
Greek and Koman spring ? You have then mistaken your path, 
and ill employed your industry. " What reward have I then for 
all my labors?" What reward! A large, comprehensive soul, 
well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and preju- 
dices ; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man, — of 
God. A rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, pregnant with inex- 
haustible stores of entertainment and reflection. A perpetual 
epring of fresh ideas; and the conscious dignity of superior 



ANNA LjETITIA BARBAULD. 135 

intelligence. Good heaven! and wliat reward can you ask be- 
sides ? 

" But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Providence 
that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed 
wealth enough to buy half a nation?" Not in the least. He 
made himself a mean, dirty fellow for that very end. He has 
paid his health, his conscience, his liberty, for it ; and will you 
envy him his bargain ? Will you hang your head and blush in 
his presence because he outshines you in equipage and show? 
Lift up your brow with a noble confidence, and say to yourself, 
I have not these things, it is true ; but it is because I have not 
sought, because I have not desired them ; it is because I possess 
something better. I have chosen my lot. I am content and 
satisfied. 

You are a modest man ; you love quiet and independence, and 
have a delicacy and reserve in your temper which renders it im- 
possible for you to elbow your way in the world, and be the 
herald of your own merits. Be content, then, with a modest re- 
tirement, with the esteem of your intimate friends, with the praises 
of a blameless heart and a delicate, ingenuous spirit ; but resign 
the splendid distinctions of the world to those who can better 
scramble for them. 

There is no one quality gives so much dignity to a character as 
consistency of conduct. Even if a man's pursuits be wrong and 
unjustifiable, yet if they are prosecuted with steadiness and vigor, 
we cannot withhold our admiration. The most characteristic 
mark of a great mind is to choose some one important object, and 
pursue it through life. It was this made Caesar a great man. His 
object was ambition ; he pursued it steadily, and was always ready 
to sacrifice to it every interfering passion or inclination. 

There is a pretty passage in one of Lucian's dialogues, where 
Jupiter complains to Cupid that, though he has had so many in- 
trigues, he was never sincerely beloved. " In order to be loved," 
says Cupid, " you must lay aside your segis and your thunder- 
bolts, and you must curl and perfume your hair, and place a 
garland on your head, and walk with a soft step, and assume a 
winning, obsequious deportment." "But," replied Jupiter, "I 
am not willing to resign so much of my dignity." " Then," re- 
turns Cupid, " leave off desiring to be loved." He wanted to be 
Jupiter and Adonis at the same time 

There is a cast of manners peculiar and becoming to each age, 
sex, and profession ; one, therefore, should not throw out illiberal 
and commonplace censures against another. Each is perfect in 
its kind. A woman as a woman : a tradesman as a tradesman. 
We are often hurt by the brutality and sluggish conceptions of 
the vulgar ; not considering that some there must be to be hewers 
of wood and drawers of water, and that cultivated genius, or even 



136 ANNA LJETITIA BARBAULD, 

any great refinement and delicacy in their moral feelings, would 
be a real misfortune to them. 

Let us, then, study the philosophy of the human mind. The man 
who is master of this science will know what to expect from every 
one. From this man, wise advice ; from that, cordial sympathy ; 
from another, casual entertainment. The passions and inclina- 
tions of others are his tools, which he can use with as much pre- 
cision as he would the mechanical powers ; and he can as readily 
make allowance for the workings of vanity or the bias of self- 
interest in his friends, as for the power of friction, or the irregu- 
larities of the needle. 



YE ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 

Salt of the earth, ye virtuous few, 

Who season human-kind ; 
Light of the world, whose cheering ray 

Illumes the realms of mind : 

Wliere Misery spreads her deepest shade, 

Your strong compassion glows ; 
From your blest lips the balm distils 

That softens mortal woes. 

By dying beds, in prison glooms, 

Your frequent steps are found ; 
Angels of love ! you hover near 

To bind the stranger's wound. 

You wash with tears the bloody page 

Which human crimes deform : 
When vengeance threats, your prayers ascend. 

And break the gathering storm. 

As down the summer stream of vice 

The thoughtless many glide, 
Upward you steer your steady bark. 

And stem the rushing tide. 

Where guilt her foul contagion breathes, 

And golden spoils allure. 
Unspotted still your garments shine, — 

Your hands are ever pure. 

Whene'er you touch the poet's lyre, 

A loftier strain is heard ; 
Each ardent thought is yours alone. 

And every burning word. 

Yours is the large expansive thought, 

The high heroic deed ; 
Exile and chains to you are dear, — 

To you 'tis s^veet to bleed. 



ANNE BARNARD. 137 

Yon lift on high the warning voice 

When public ills prevail ; 
Yours is the writing on the wall 

That turns the tyrant pale. 

And yours is all through History's rolls 

The kindling bosom feels ; 
And at your tomb, with throbbing heart, 

The fond enthusiast kneels. 

In every faith, through every clime, 

Your pilgrim steps we trace ; 
And shrines are dress'd and temples rise, 

Each hallow'd spot to grace ; 

And pseans loud, in every tongue, 

And choral hymns resound ; 
And lengthening honors hand your name 

To time's remotest bound. 

Proceed ! your race of glory run, 

Your virtuous toils endure ! 
You come, commission'd from on high, 

And your reward is sure. 

Mrs. Barbaukl has also written some of the sweetest sacred lyrics in our 
language. The following are the first lines of six of her hymns : — 

" Again the Lord of life and light;" 
" Awake, my soul ! lift up thine eyes ;" 
" Behold where, breathing love divine;" 
" Come, said Jesus' sacred voice ;" 
" How blest the sacred tie that binds ;" 
" Praise to God, immortal pi-aise." 



ANNE BARNARD, 1750-1825. 

Lady Anne Barnard, daughter of James Lindsay, Earl of Balcarres, was 
born in Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1750, and was married in 1793 to Mr. Andrew 
Barnard, who was secretary under Lord Macartney at the colony of the Cape 
of Good Hope, where she died in 1825. This is about all we know of the life 
of the authoress of one of the sweetest, most tender, and most affecting ballads 
in our language, and which deserves a place in any collection of its gems, — 
the ballad of 

AULB ROBIN GRAY.^ 

When the sheep are in the fauld, when the kye's come hame, 
And a' the weary warld to quiet rest are gane. 
The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my ee, 
Unkent by my gudeman, wha soundly sleeps by me. 

1 Of this ballad Leigh Hunt has truly said, ] first water than any other ballad that ever 
" It has suffused more eyes with tears of the | was written." 

12* 



138 HEBER. 

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride, 
But saving ae crown-piece he'd naething else beside ; 
To make the crown a pound ray Jamie gaed to sea, 
And the crown and the pound, — O they were baith for me. 

Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day, 
My father brake his arm, — our cow was stown away ; 
My mither she fell sick, — my Jamie was at sea, 
And Auld Eobin Gray, O he came a-courting-me. 

My father couldna wark, — my mither couldna spin, — 
I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win ; 
Auld Rob maintain' d them baith, and, wi' tears in his ee, 
Said, " Jeanie, oh, for their sakes, will ye marry me ?" 

My heart it said Na, and I look'd for Jamie back, 
But hard blew the winds, and his ship it proved a wrack ; 
His ship it was a wrack, — why didna Jamie dee, 
And wherefore am I spared to cry, O wae is me ? 

My father urged me sair, — my mither didna speak, 
But she lookit in my face till my heart was like to break ; 
They gied him my hand, — but my heart was in the sea, — 
And so Auld Eobin Gray was a gudeman to me. 

I hadna been his wife a week but only four. 

When, mournfu' as I sat on the stane at my door, 

I saw my Jamie's ghaist, — I couldna think it he. 

Till he said,." I'm come hame, my love, to marry thee!" 

Oh, sair sair did we greet, and mickle say of a', 

Ae kiss we took, nae mair — I bad him gang aAva' : 

I wish that I were dead, but I'm na like to dee. 

For, though my heart is broken, I'm but young, — Wae is me ! 

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin, 
I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin. 
But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be. 
For Auld Eobin Gray, oh, he is sae kind to me. 



REGINALD HEBER, 1783-1826. 

Whose eloquence 
Held congregations open-ear'd 
As from the heart it flowed, a living stream 
Of Christian wisdom, pure and undefiled. 

SOUTHEY. 

Reginald Heber, son of the Rev. Reginald Heber, was born at Malpas, in 
Cheshire, on the 21st of April, 1783. His youth was distinguished by pre- 
cocity of talent, docility of temper, a love of reading, and a veneration for reli- 
gion. After completing the usual course of elementary instruction, he entered 
the University of Oxford in 1800. In the first year he gained the university 
prize for Latin verse; and in 1803 he wrote his poem of Palestine, which was 



HEBER. 



139 



received with distinguished applause.^ His academical career was brilliant 
from its commencement to its close. After taking his degree, and gaining the 
university prize for the best English prose essay, he set out, in 1805, on a conti- 
nental tour. He returned the following year, and in 1807 " took orders," and 
was settled in Hodnet, in Shropshire, where, for many years, he discharged the 
duties of his large parish with exemplary assiduity .2 

In 1809 he married, and in the same year published a series of Ilynms, 
"appropriate for Sundays and principal holidays of the year." In 1812 he 
commenced a Dictionary of the Bible, and published a volume of Poevis and 
Translations, the translations being chiefly from Pindar. After being advanced 
to two or three ecclesiastical preferments, in 1822 he received the oflfer of the 
bishopric of Calcutta, made vacant by the death of Dr. Middleton. Kever, it 
is believed, did any man accept an office from a higher sense of duty. He 
was in the possession of affluence, had the fairest prospects before him, and 
had recently built at Hodnet a parsonage-house, combining every comfort with 
elegance and beauty. But he considered this call as a call from Heaven, from 
which he might not shrink; and he resolutely determined to obey the sum- 
mons. Accordingly, in 1823 he embarked for India, where he arrived in 
safety, "with a field before him that might challenge the labors of an apostle, 
and, we will venture to say, with as much of the spirit of an apostle in him as ■ 
has rested on any man in these latter days." Indeed, he was peculiarly well 
qualified to fill this high and resjjonsible station, as Avell by his amiable and 
conciliatory temper as by his talents, learning, and zeal in the cause of Chris- 
tianity. He entered with great earnestness upon his duties, and had already 
made many long journeys through his extensive field of labor, when he was 
suddenly cut off by an apoplectic fit, which seized him while bathing, at 
Trichinopoli, on the 3d of April, 1826. 

Besides the works of Bishop Heber already mentioned, there were published, 
after his death, Parish Sermons at Hodnet, in two volumes, and a Narrative of a 
Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, from CalcutU!, to Bombay, in two 
volumes. But it is chiefly by his poems that his name will live; for they are 
chaste, pleasing, and elegant compositions, and there are passages in his 
Palestine which almost reach the sublime. His Hymns, however, have been by 
far the most popular of his productions, — the favorites of the Christian Church 
among all denominations. Indeed, in purity and elevation of sentiment, in 
simple pathos, in deep fervor and eloquent earnestness, there are not many 
superior to them in English sacred lyric poetry. 



1 " Such a poem, composed aljpuch an age, 
lias indeed some, but not many, parallels in 
our language. Its coinous diction, its perfect 
numbers, its images so well chosen, diversified 
80 happily, and treated with so much discretion 
and good taste, and, above all, the ample know- 
ledge of Scripture and of writings illustrative 
of Scripture displayed in it, — all these things 
might have seemed to bespeak the work of a 
man who ' had been long choosing and begun 
late,' rather than of a stripling of nineteen." — 
Quarterli/ Review, xxxv. 451. 



2 "While incumbent of Ilodnet, Heber had 
an opportunity of aftording the world an illus- 
trious example of the highest intellectual cul- 
ture and the finest natural taste being made 
perfectly compatible with the most faithful 
discharge of the humblest religious and moral 
duties, — the instruction of the ignorant, the 
reproof of the erring, the visitation of the sick, 
and the consolation of the bereaved ; and, in 
his leisure moments, he there also took delight 
in pouring out his feelings in snatches of sacred 
verse."— D. M. MoiR. 



140 HEBER. 



NATIONS RESPONSIBLE TO GOD.^ 

If the Israelites were endowed, beyond the nations of man- 
kind, with wise and righteous laws, with a fertile and almost im- 
pregnable territory, with a race of valiant and victorious kings, 
and a God who (while they kept his ways) was a wall of fire 
against their enemies round about them; if the kings of the 
wilderness did them homage, and the lion-banner of David and 
Solomon was reflected at once from the Mediterranean and the 
Euphrates, — it was that the way of the Lord might be made 
known by their means upon earth, and that the saving health of 
the Messiah might become conspicuous to all nations. 

It has pleased the Almighty that the nation to which we our- 
selves belong is a great, a valiant, and an understanding nation ; 
it has pleased Him to give us an empire on which the sun never 
sets, — a commerce by which the remotest nations of the earth are 
become our allies, our tributaries, I had almost said our neighbors ; 
and by means (when regarded as human means, and distinct from 
his mysterious providence) so inadequate as to excite our alarm 
as well as wonder, — the sovereignty over these wide and popu- 
lous heathen lands. But is it for our sakes that he has given us 
these good gifts and wrought these great marvels in our favor? 
Are we not rather set up on high in the earth, that we may show 
forth the light by which we are guided, and be the honored 
instruments of diffusing those blessings which we ourselves enjoy, 
through every land where our will is law, through every tribe 
where our wisdom is held in reverence, and in every distant isle 
which our winged vessels visit ? If we value, then (as who does 
not value?), our renown among mankind; if we exult (as who 
can help exulting?) in the privileges which the providence of 
God has conferred on the British nation; if we are thankful 
(and God forbid we should be otherwise) for the means of useful- 
ness in our power ; and if we love (as who does not love ?) our 
native land, its greatness and prosperity, let us see that we, each 
of us in his station, are promoting to the best of our power, by 
example, by exertion, by liberality, by the practice of Christian 
justice and every virtue, the extension o^' God's truth among 
men, and the honor of that holy name whereby we are called. 
There have been realms before as famous as our own, and (in 
relation to the then extent and riches of the civilized world) as 
powerful and as wealthy, of which the traveller sees nothing now 
but ruins in the midst of a wilderness, or where the mariner only 
finds a rock for fishers to spread their nets. Nineveh once 
reigned over the east; but where is Nineveh now? Tyre had 



1 These fine remarks which the bishop applies to his own favored land are equally appli 
cable to oiir own. 



TIE BEE. 141 

once the commerce of the world ; but what is become of Tyre ? 
But if the repentance of Nineveh had been persevered in, her 
towers would have stood to this day. Had the daughter of Tyre 
brought her gifts to the temple of God, she would have' continued 
a queen forever. 

PALESTINE. 

Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn, 
Mourn, widow'd queen ! forgotten Sion, mourn ! 
Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne, 
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone? 
While suns unbless'd their angry lustre fling, 
And wayworn pilgrims seek the scanty spring? 
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy view'd? 
Where now thy might, which all those kings subdued? 
No martial myriads muster in thy gate, 
No suppliant nations in thy Temple wait, 
No prophet-bards, thy glittering courts among, 
Wake the full lyre, and swell the tide of song ; 
But lawless Force and meagre Want are there. 
And the quick-darting eye of restless Fear, 
While cold Oblivion, 'mid thy ruins laid. 
Folds his dank wing beneath the ivy-shade. 



THE ISRAELITES BELIVERED FROM THEIR OPPRESSORS. 

Oh, welcome came the morn, when Israel stood 
In trustless wonder by the avenging flood ! 
Oh, welcome came the cheerful morn, to show 
The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below! 
. The mangled limbs of men, — the broken car, — 
A few sad relics of a nation's war ; 
Alas ! how few ! Then, soft as Elim's well. 
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell. 
And he, whose harden'd heart alike had borne 
The house of bondage and the oppressor's scorn, 
The stubboim slave, by hope's new beams subdued, 
In faltering accents sobb'd his gratitude, — 
Till, kindUng into warmer zeal, around 
The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound ; 
And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest, 
The strugghng spirit throbb'd in Miriam's breast. 
She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky 
The dark transparence of her lucid eye, 
Pour'd on the winds of heaven her wild, sweet harmony, 
"Where now," she sang, "the tall Egyptian spear? 
On's sunlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where? 
Above their ranks the whelming waters spread. 
Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !" 
And every pause between, as Miriam sang, 
From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang, 
And loud and far their stormy chorus spread, — 
" Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !" 



142 



HEBER. 



TO HIS WIFE. 

If thou wert by my side, my love, 

How fast would evening fail 
In green Bengala's palmy grove, 

Listening the niglidngale ! 

If thou, my love, wert by my side, 

My babies at my knee, 
How gayly would our pinnace glide 

O'er Gunga's mimic sea ! 

I miss thee at the dawning gray, 

When, on our deck reclined, 
In careless ease my limbs I lay. 

And Avoo the cooler wind. 

I miss thee when by Gunga's stream 

My twilight steps I guide ; 
But most beneath the lamp's pale beam 

I miss thee from my side. 

I spread my books, my pencil try, 

The lingering noon to cheer. 
But miss thy kind approving eye, 

Thy meek attentive ear. 

But when of morn and eve the star 

Beholds me on my knee, 
I feel, though thou art distant far, 

Thy prayers ascend for me. 

Then on ! then on ! where duty leads, 

My course be onward still ; 
On broad Hindostan's sultry meads. 

O'er bleak Almorah's hill. 

That course nor Delhi's kingly gates 

Nor mild Mulwah detain ; 
For sweet the bliss us both awaits 

By yonder western main. 

Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they e. 

Across the dark blue sea ; 
But ne'er were hearts so light and gay 

As then shall meet in thee !^ 



1 " Marriage is an institution calculated for 
a constant scene of as much delight as our 
being is capable of. Two persons who have 
chosen each other out of all the species, with 
design to be each other's mutual comfort and 
entertainment, have in that action bound 
themselves to be good-humored, affable, dis- 
creet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with re- 
spect to each other's frailties and imperfec- 
tions, to the end of their lives. The wiser of 
the two (and it always happens one of them is 
such) will, for her or his own sake, keep things 
from outrage with the utmost sanctity. When 



this union is thus preserved (as I have often 
said), the most indifferent circumstance ad- 
ministers delight. Their condition is an end- 
less source of new gratifications. The married 
man can say, ' If I am unacceptable to all the 
world beside, there is one whom I entirely 
love, that will receive me with joy and trans- 
port, and think herself obliged to double her 
kindness and caresses of me from the gloom 
with which she sees me overcast. I need not 
dissemble the sorrow of my heart to be agree- 
able thefe: that very sorrow quickens her 
affection.' " — Steele : Spectator, No. 490. 



HEBER. 143 



ON THE DEATH OF HIS BE OTHER, 

Thou art gone to the grave ! but we will not deplore thee, 
Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb ! 

Thy Saviour has pass'd through its portal before thee, 

And the lamp of his love is thy guide through the gloom I 

Thou art gone to the grave ! we no longer behold thee. 
Nor tread the rough paths of the world by thy side ; 

But the wide arms of Mercy are spread to enfold thee, 
And sinners may die, for the Sinless has died. 

Thou art gone to the grave ! and, its mansion forsaking. 
Perchance thy weak spirit in fear linger'd long; 

But the mild rays of Paradise beam'd on thy waking, 

And the sound which thou heard'st was the Seraphim's song I 

Thou art gone to the grave ! but we will not deplore thee, 
Whose God was thy ransom, thy guardian and guide ; 

He gave thee, he took thee, and he will restore thee. 
And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died !^ 



EPIPHAXY. 

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning. 
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid ! 

Star of the East, the horizon adorning. 
Guide where our infant Kedeemer is laid ! 

Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining. 
Low lies his head with the beasts of the stall I 

Angels adore him in slumber reclining. 
Maker, and Monarch, and Saviour of all ! 

Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion, 
Odors of Edom, and oflferings divine ? 

Gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean, 
Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine ? 

Vainly we offer each ample oblation ; 

Vainly with gifts would his favor secure ; 
Richer by far is the heart's adoration. 

Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor. 

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, 
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid ! 

Star of the East, the horizon adorning, 
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid ! 



I Tho following stanzas were written as an addition to the above hymn, by an English clergy- 
man, on hearing of the decease of the author : — 

"Thou art gone to the grave! and whole nations bemoan thee, 
Who caught from thy lips the glad tidings of peace : 
Yet, grateful, they still in their hearts shall enthrone thee, 
And ne'er shall thy name from their memories cease. 

"Thou art gone to the grave! but thy work shall not perish, — 
That work which the Spirit of wisdom hath blest ; 
His strength shall sustain it, His comfort shall cherish, 
And make it to prosper, though thou art at rest." 



141 



FOLLOK. 



The following are the first lines of other of his beautiful hymns ; 
" Bread of the world, in mercy broken ;" 
" Beneath our feet, and o'er our head ;" 
" Bj' cool Siloam's shady rill ;" 
" From Greenland's icy mountains ;" 
" I praised the earth in beauty seen ;" 
" The God of glory walks his round." 



ROBERT POLL OK, 1799-1827. 

In 1827 the world was startled hy the appearance of a new epic, — a religious 
poem in blank verse, entitled Tlie Course of Time, by Eobert Pollok, a young 
clergyman of the Scottish Secession Church. Few works before ever became 
so rapidly and extensively popular. It was read with eagerness by all classes, 
and passed through numerous editions; and by many it was pronounced the 
finest poem that had appeared in our language since the Paradise Lost. Some 
even went so far as to claim for the author a genius and a power equal to Mil- 
ton's. This, of course, was ridiculously extravagant. But, after the first excite- 
ment passed away, the literary world settled doAvn in the well-matured con- 
viction that The Coicrse of Time is a poem of extraordinary power, and destined 
to maintain its place among the best English classics.^ 

Eobert Pollok, the son of a farmer in Renfrewshire,^ Scotland, was born in 
the year 1799. While a mere boy he was remarkably thoughtful, and from a 
very early age displayed a taste for the beauties of nature and a capacity for 
enjoying them by no means common. After going through tj;ie ordinary pre- 
paratory studies, he was sent to the University of Glasgow, where for five years 
he studied theology, under Dr. Dick. He had hardly entered upon his pro- 
fessional duties when his health, enfeebled by excessive application to his studies, 
and in the composition of his great poem, became so much impaired that his 
friends urged him to try the climate of Southern Europe. He, therefore, shortly 
after the publication of his poem, in 1827, in company with his sister, departed 
on his journey. But he was enabled to get no farther than to the south of Eng- 
land. His disease (consumption) increased to such a degree as to preclude all 
hope of recovery; and his death took j^lace at Shirley Common, Southampton, 
on the 18tli of September, 1827.3 

Few youthful poets have excited so much interest as Robert Pollok. Like 
Henry Kirke White, he died young. Like him, his muse was the handmaid 



1 "The Course of Time is a very extraordinary 
poem, — vast in its conception, vast in its plan, 
vast in its materials, and vast, if very far from 
perfect, in its achievement. The wonderful 
thing is, indeed, that it is such as we find it, 
and not that its imperfections are numerous. 
It has nothing at all savoring of the little or 
conventional about it; for he passed at once 
from the merely elegant and graceful. With 
Young, Blair, and Cowper for his guides, his 
muse sti'ove with unwearied wing to attain 
the high, severe, serene region of Milton ; and 
he was at least successful in earnestness of 
purpose, in solemnity of tone, and in vigor 
and variety of illustration." — D. M. Mom. 



2 On the western coast of Scotland, due west 
from Edinburgh. 

3 " Poor Pollok gave his manuscript to the 
press from a dying hand. Several of the books 
had been copied over for him by a female 
hand, on account of his increasing debility. 
On the 24th of March, 1827, The Course of Time 
was given to the world ; and on the 18th of 
September of the same year its author was 
removed from it. But not only had he not 
lived in vain : the great object of his life had 
been accomplished in the publication of his 
poem ; and it is pleasant to know that the 
news of its success shed a sunshine around his 
early death-bed." — MoiR. 



POLLOK, 145 

of virtue and religion, to both of which his studies were consecrated. On him, 
as on White, consumption "laid her hand/' and he as constantly "nursed the 
pinion that impelled the steel." Each fell a martyr to too severe application 
to study; and each will be remembered and loved as long as genius united to 
virtue and piety has friends among men. 

The Course of Time is in ten books, the object of the poet being to describe 
the spiritual life and destiny of man; and he varies his religious speculations 
with episodical pictures and narratives, to illustrate the effects of virtue and 
vice. It has been said, " The whole story may be given in a sentence. Many 
ages after the end of our world, a spirit from one of the numerous worlds ex- 
isting in space, on his flight toward heaven, discovers the abode of lost men 
in hell. Reaching heaven, he inquires of two spirits, who welcome his arrival 
there, what is the meaning of the wretchedness he had just witnessed. The 
two, unable fully to answer, conduct the inquirer to a bard who once lived on 
earth, and he, in answering their inquiries, relates the history of man, from 
the creation to the judgment." This plan, simple and limited as to plot, is 
boundless a's to range ; and the imagination, unfettered, soars far and wide. 
Though as a whole the poem is unequal, it abounds with passages that will 
always rank high and be read with interest; and if many may not agree with 
Bome of the author's religious speculations, all will unite in gratitude for what 
he has done, and in sincere regret that his life was not spared longer to do 
more to make mankind wiser and better. 

HAPPINESS. 

True Happiness had no localities, . 

No tones provincial, no peculiar garb. 
Where Duty went, she went, with -Justice went, 
And went with Meekness, Charity, and Love. 
Where'er a tear was dried, a wounded lieart 
Bound up, a bruised spirit with the dew 
Of sympathy anointed, or a pang 
Of honest suffering soothed, or injury- 
Repeated oft, as oft by love forgiven ; 
Where'er an evil passion was subdued, 
Or Virtue's feeble embers fann'd ; wliere'er 
A sin was heartily abjured and left ; 
Where'er a pious act was done, or breathed 
A pious prayer, or wish'd a pious wish ; 
There was a high and holy place, a spot 
Of sacred light, a most religious fane, 
Where Happiness, descending, sat and smiled. 

THE MISEB. 

But there was one in folly further gone ; 
With eye awry, incurable, and wild, 
The laughing-stock of devils and of men, 
And by his guardian-angel quite given up, — 
The Miser, who witli dust inanimate 
Held wedded intercourse. Ill-guided wretch 
Thou niigljt'st liave seen him at the midnight hour, 
When good men slept and in light-winged dreams 
13 



146 POLLOK. 

Ascended up to God, — in wasteful liall, 

With vigilance and fasting worn to skin 

And bone, and wrapp'd in most debasing rags, — 

Thou might' st have seen him bending o'er his heaps, 

And holding strange communion with his gold ; 

And as his thievish fancy seem'd to hear 

The night-man's foot approach, starting alarm' d, 

And in his old, decrepit, wither'd hand, 

That palsy shook, grasping the yellow .earth 

To make it sure. Of all God made upright, 

And in their nostrils breathed a living soul, 

Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased. 

Of all that sold Eternity for Time, 

None bargain 'd on so easy terms with death. 

Illustrious fool ! Nay, most inhuman wretch ! 

He sat among his bags, and, with a look 

Which Hell might be ashamed of, drove the jioor 

Away unalms'd ; and midst abundance died, — 

Sorest of evils, — died of utter want ! 

FRIENDS. 

Some I remember, and will ne'er forget; 

My early, friends, friends of my evil day; 

Friends in my mirth, friends in my misery too ; 

Friends given by God in mercy and in love ; 

My counsellors, my comforters, and guides, 

My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy ; 

Companions of my young desires ; in doubt 

My oracles, my wings in high pursuit. 

Oh, I remember, and will ne'er forget 

Our meeting spots, our chosen sacred hours, 

Our burning words that utter'd all the soul, 

Our faces beaming with unearthly love ; 

Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope 

Exulting, heart embracing heart entire. 

As birds of social feather helping each 

His fellow's flight, we soar'd into the skies, 

And cast the clouds beneath our feet, and earth, 

With all her tardy leaden-footed cares. 

And talk'd the speech, and ate the food, of heaven ! 

These I remember, these selectest men, 

And would their names record ; but what avails 

My mention of their names ? Before the throne 

They stand illustrious 'mong the loudest harps. 

And will receive thee glad, my friend and theirs, — 

For all are friends in heaven, all faithful friends ; 

And many friendships in the days of time 

Begun, are lasting here, and growing still ; 

So grows ours ever more, both theirs and mine. 

AN AUTUMN EVENING— A MAIDEN'S PRAYER. 

It was an eve of autumn's holiest mood. 
The corn-fields, bathed in Cyntliia's silver light, 
Stood ready for the reaper's gathering hand ; 



rOLLOK. 147 

And all the winds slept soundlv. Nature seem'd 

In silent contemplation to adore 

Its Maker. Now and then the aged leaf 

Fell from its fellows, rustling to the ground ; 

And, as it fell, bade man think on his end. 

On vale and lake, on wood and mountain high, 

With pensive wing outspread, sat heavenly Thought, 

Conversing with itself. Vesper look'd forth 

From out her western hermitage, and smiled ; 

And up the east, unclouded, rode tlie moon / 

With all her stars, gazing on earth intense, 

As if she saw some wonder working there. 

Such was the night, so lovely, still, serene, 
When, by a hermit thorn, that on the hill 
Had seen a hundred fiowery ages pass, 
A damsel kneel'd to offer up her prayer, — 
Her prayer nightly ofFer'd, nightly heard. 
This ancient thorn had been the meeting-place 
Of love, before his country's voice had call'd 
The ardent youth to honor' d office far 
Beyond the wave ; and hitluer now repair' d, 
Nightly, the maid, by God's all-seeing eye 
Seen only, while she sought this boon alone, — ■ 
" Her lover's safety, and his quick return." 
In holy, humble attitude she kneel'd, 
And to her bosom, fair as moonbeam, press'd 
One hand, the other lifted up to heaven. 
Her eye, upturn' d, bright as the star of morn, 
As violet meek, excessive ardor stream' d. 
Wafting away her earnest heart to God. 
Her voice, scarce utter' d, soft as Zephyr sighs 
On morning's lily cheek, though soft and low. 
Yet heard in heaven, heard at the mercy-seat. 
A tear-drop wander' d on lier lovely face : 
It was a tear of faith and holy fear, 
Pure as the drops that hang at dawning-tirae 
On yonder willows by the stream of life. 
On her the moon look'd steadfastly ; the stars 
That circle nightly round the eternal throne. 
Glanced down, well pleased ; and everlasting Love 
Gave gracious audience to her prayer sincere. 
Oh ! had her lover seen her thus alone, 
Thus holy, wrestling thus, and all for him ! 
Nor did he not; for ofttimes Providence 
With unexpected joy the fervent prayer 
Of faith surprised. Keturn'd from long delay, 
The sacred thorn, to memory dear, first sought 
The youth, and found it at the happy hour. 
Just when the damsel kneel'd herself to pray. 
Wrapp'd in devotion, pleading with her God, 
She saw him not, lieard not his foot approach. 
All holy images seem'd too impure 
To emblem her he saw. A seraph kneel'd, 
Beseeching for his ward before the throne, 
Seem'd fittest, pleased him best. Sweet was the tliought, 



148 DYMOND. 

But sweeter still the kind remembrance came, 

That she was flesh and blood form'd for himself, 

The plighted partner of his future life. 

And as they met, embraced, and sat embower'd 

In Avoody chambers of the starry night, 

Spirits of love about them minister'd, 

And God, approving, bless'd the holy joy ! 



JONATHAN DYMOND, 1196-1828. 

Jonathan DvuroND, the celebrated author of the Essays, on Morality, was born 
in Exeter, in 1796. His father, who was a member of the Society of Friends, 
was a linen-draper of that city, and brought up his son to the same business. 
Of course, he did not receive what is called a "liberal education;" but he 
possessed that without which a liberal education is worse than useless; for the 
Bound moral and religious principles, which were carefully inculcated by his 
parents at home, laid the foundation of that elevated and stern standard 
of morality which has given him- a high rank among English moralists. On . 
leaving school, he found employment in his father's business, in which he 
afterward became a partner, and in which he continued until the close of his 
life. 

In 1822 he married Anna Wilkey, a Friend, of Plymouth, who survived him 
nearly twenty-one years : their family consisted of a daughter and a son, the 
latter of whom died at the age of seven years. In 1823 he published his In- 
quiry into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity, a work 
composed in the momentary intervals of business, and in his early morning 
hours, — time rescued from sleep by his habit of early rising. This work, from 
the energy and earnestness of its style, and from its high standard of Christian 
morals, immediately attracted very great attention, and soon ran through three 
editions. During the time occupied in publishing the Inquiry, he was dili- 
gently engaged in laying the foundation of his other work, — that on which 
his fame chiefly rests, — his Essays on the Principles of Morality. He was never 
of a strong constitution; and early in the spring of 1826 appeared the symptoms 
of that disease which, in two years, was to send him to his grave. His dis- 
order — pulmonary consumption — continued to make rapid advances, and after 
trying two or three different situations in the country in hopes of benefit, he 
returned to his native place, where he remained still employed, as his small 
remaining strength would permit, in preparing for the publication of his 
Essays; and he might be seen surrounded by his papers until a few days 
before his death, which took place on the 6th of May, 1828. 

If " that life is long which answers life's great end," few men have lived to a 
greater age than Jonathan Dymond, though he died at the early age of thirty- 
two, — for few men have done more good. His Essays on the Principles of 
Morality is undoubtedly one of the very best works upon that subject; and 
it is worthy of remark that, though learned scholars, profound civilians, cele- 
brated divines, and famous moralists had written ujion the same subject, an 
humble individual of the Society of Friends, bred in no academic halls, should 
have surpassed most of them. The plain, simple reason is that he takes the 



DYMOND. 149 

word of God as his infallible standard of rectitude by which to weigh all 
actions, and that, with a clear head and an honest conscience, he follows his 
principles wherever they lead, knowing that they can never lead wrong. It 
is amusing as well as instructive to see with what ease he overthrows all the 
previous standards of rectitude which various men had set up, — utility, expe- 
diency, &c., — and establishes the great central truth, that the Will of God is 
the only standard by which to judge concerning the right or wrong of actions. 

LOVE THE TEST OF ONE'S CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. 

Love is made the test of the validity of our claims to the 
Christian character : " By this shall all men knov/ that ye are 
my disciiDles." Again: "Love one another. He that loveth 
another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit 
adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not bear false witness, 
Thou shalt not covet ; and if there be any other commandment, 
it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neigh- 
bor : therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." It is not, there- 
fore, surprising that, after an enumeration in another place of 
various duties, the same dignified apostle says, ''Above all these 
things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfedness." The 
inculcation of this benevolence is as frequent in the Christian 
Scriptures as its practical utility is great. He who will look 
through the volume will find that no topic is so frequently intro- 
duced, no obligation so emphatically enforced, no virtue to which 
the approbation of God is so specially promised. It is the theme 
of all the " apostolic exhortations, that with which their morality 
begins and ends, from which all their details and enumerations 
set out, and into which they return." " He that dwelleth in love 
dwelleth in God, and God in him." More emphatical language 
cannot be employed. It exalts to the utmost the character of 
the virtue, and, in effect, promises its possessor the utmost favor 
and felicity. If, then, of faith, hope, and love, love be the 
greatest; if it be by the test of love that our pretensions to 
Christianity are to be tried ; if all the relative duties of morality 
are embraced in one word, and that word is love ; it is obviously 
needful that, in a book like this, the requisitions of benevolence 
should be habitually regarded in the prosecution of its inquiries. 
And, accordingly, the reader will sometimes be invited to sacrifice 
inferior considerations to these requisitions, and to give to the 
law of love that paramount station in which it has been placed 
by the authority of God. 

HUMAN SUBORDINATE TO DIVINE LAW. 

The authority of civil government is a subordinate authority. 
If from any cause the magistrate enjoins that which is prohibited 

13* 



150 DYMOND. 

by the moral law, the duty of obedience is withdrawn. "All 
human authority ceases at the point where obedience becomes 
criminal." The reason is simple : that when the magistrate enjoins 
what is criminal, he has exceeded his power ; " the minister of 
God" has gone beyond his commission. There is, in our day, ho 
such thing as a moral plejiipotentiary. 

Uj^on these principles the first teachers of Christianity acted 
when the rulers " called them, and commanded them not to speak 
at all nor teach in the name of Jesus." " Whether," they re- 
plied, " it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more 
than unto God, judge ye." They accordingly " entered into the 
temple early in the morning, and taught ;" and when, subse- 
quently, they were again brought before the council and interro- 
gated, they replied, " We ought to obey God rather than men :" 
and, notwithstanding the renewed command of the council, " daily 
in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and 
preach Jesus Christ." Nor let any one suppose that there is 
any thing religious in the motives of the apostles which involved 
a peculiar obligation upon them to refuse obedience ; the obliga- 
tion to conform to religious duty and to moral duty is one. 

To disobey the civil magistrate is, however, not a light thing. 
AVhen the Christian conceives that the requisitions of govern- 
ment and of a higher law are conflicting, it is needful that he 
exercise a strict scrutiny into the principles of his conduct. But 
if, upon such scrutiny, the contrariety of requisitions appear real, 
no room is left for doubt resjoecting his duty, or for hesitation in 
performing it. With the consideration of consequences he has 
then no concern : whatever they may be, his path is plain before 
him. 

SLA VER Y. 

To him who examines, slavery by the standard to which all 
questions of human duty should be referred, the task of deciding, 
we say, is short. Whether it is consistent Avith the Christian law 
for one man to keep another in bondage without his consent, and 
to compel him to labor for that other's advantage, admits of no 
more doubt than whether two and two make four. It were humi- 
liating, then, to set about the proof that the slave-system is in- 
compatible with Christianity; because no man questions its 
incompatibility who knows what Christianity is, and what it 
requires. 

The distinctions which are made between the original robbery 
in Africa, and the purchase, the inheritance, or the " breeding" 
of slaves in the colonies, do not at all respect the kind of im- 
morality that attaches to the whole system. They respect nothing 
but the degree. The man who wounds and robs another on the 
higliAvay is a more atrocious offender than he who plunders a 



DYMOND. 151 

hen-roost ; but he is not more truly an offender, he is not more 
certainly a violator of the law. And so with the slave-system. 
He who drags a wretched man from his family in Africa is a 
more flagitious transgressor than he who merely compels the 
African to labor for his own advantage ; but the transgression, 
the immorality, is as real and certain in one case as in the other. 
He who had no right to steal the African can have none to sell 
him. From him who is known to have no right to sell, another 
can have no right to buy or to possess. Sale, or gift, or legacy im- 
parts no right to me ; because the seller, or giver, or bequeather 
had none himself. The sufferer has just as valid a claim to 
liberty at my hands as at the hands of the ruffian who first 
dragged him from his home. Every hour of every day the pre- 
sent possessor is guilty of injustice. Nor is the case altered with 
respect to those who are born on a man's estate. The parents 
were never the landholder's property, and therefore the child is 
not. Nay, if the parents had been rightfully slaves, it would not 
justify me in making slaves of their children. No man has a 
right to make a child a slave but himself. What are our senti- 
ments upon kindred subjects? What do we think of the justice 
of the Persian system, by which, when a state offender is put to 
death, his brothers and his children are killed or mutilated too ? 
Or, to come nearer to the point, as well as nearer home, what 
should we say of a law which enacted that of every criminal who 
was sentenced to labor for life, all the children should be sen- 
tenced so to labor also ? And yet, if there is any comparison of 
reasonableness, it seems to be in one respect in favor of the 
culprit. He is condemned to slavery for his crimes ; the African, 
for another man's profit. 

It is quite evident that our slave-system will be abolished,^ and 
that its supporters will hereafter be regarded with the same public 
feelings as he who was an advocate of the slave-trade is now. 
How is it that legislators or that public men are so indifferent to 
their fame ? Who would now be willing that biography should 
record of him — This man defended the slave-trade f The time 
will come when the record — This man opposed the abolition of 
slavery — will occasion a great deduction from the j)ublic estimate 
of worth of character. When both these atrocities are abolished, 
and, but for the page of history, forgotten, that page will make a 
wide difference between those who aided the abolition and those 
who obstructed it. The one will be ranked among the Howards 
. that are departed, and the other among those who, in ignorance 
or in guilt, have employed their little day in inflicting misery 
upon mankind. 

1 This was, of course, written before the glorious act of Great Britain, — the emancipation of 
the slaves in all her colonies in 1834. 



152 



DAVY. 



HUMPHRY DAVY, 1778-1829. 

Sir Humphry Davy, who ranks as a man of science second to none in the 
nineteenth century, was born at Penzance, in Cornwall, on the 17th of Decem- 
bei*, 1778. He was early bound as an apprentice to a surgeon and apothecary 
of his native town, who had a great fondness for chemical experiments. Here 
young Davy found what was entirely congenial to his tastes j and with such 
extraordinary enthusiasm did he devote himself to these j)ursuits, that he 
abandoned all the usual enjoyments and relaxations of youth and showed an 
aversion to all festive society. His success in scientific inquiries in a few years 
became known and appreciated, and he was engaged as an assistant to Dr. 
Beddoes in the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol. In 1803 he was elected a 
Fellow of the Royal Society, of which he subsequently became secretary, and 
finally President. Besides six Discourses delivered before this Society, at their 
anniversary meetings, there are recorded fifty-one Treatises and Lectures on 
various scientific subjects, contributed to its "Transactions" in the course of 
twenty-five years. 

But that for which he is most widely known is the invention of the " Safety 
Lamp," which enabled miners to work in perfect safety, where before dreadful 
accidents were constantly occurring. This was so appreciated by the coal-owners 
of the north of England, that they invited him to a public dinner at Newcastle, 
and presented him a service of plate valued at £2000. The Emj)eror of Russia 
also sent him a splendid silver vase, as a testimony of regard; and he was 
created a baronet.' But his constant labors had such an effect upon his consti- 
tution that in 1828 he resigned the presidency of the Royal Society and went 
to Italy for the benefit of his health, where he amused himself in writing 
Salmonia, or Days of Fly -Fishing, and his Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days 
of a Philosopher. These last days were fast approaching: he quitted Italy in a 
very weak state, but had only reached Geneva on his way home, when he died 
there, on the morning of the 30th of May, 1829. 

Sir Humphry Davy combined qualities rarely found united, — great quickness 
of perception, a peculiarly retentive memory, a love for laborious investigation, 
with a highly poetical imagination. As to his poetic talent, let Coleridge pro- 
nounce judgment: "Had not Davy been the first chemist, he probably would 
have been the first poet, of his age." 

THE PLEASURES AND ADVANTAGES OF FISHING. 

The search after food is an instinct belonging to our nature ; 
and from the savage in his rudest and most primitive state, who 
destroys a ]3iece of game or a fish with a club or spear, to man 
in the most cultivated state of society, who employs artifice, 
machinery, and the resources of various other animals, to secure 
his object, the origin of the pleasure is similar, and its object the 



1 " I value it," he used to say, with the kind- 
liest exultation, " more than any thing I ever 
did : it was the result of a great deal of investi- 
gation and labor; but, if my directions be 
attended to, it will save the lives of thousands 



of poor men." Posterity will bo grateful for 
these generous words; for 

" He who works mo good with unmoved face 
Does it but half: he chills me while he aids, — 
My benefactor, not my brother man." 



DAVY. 153 

same : but that kind of it requiring most art may be said to 
characterize man in his highest or intellectual state ; and the 
fisher for salmon and trout with the fly, employs not only ma- 
chinery to assist his physical powers, but applies sagacity to con- 
quer difiiculties ; and the pleasure derived from ingenious re- 
sources and devices, as well as from active pursuit, belongs to 
this amusement. Then as to its philosophical tendency, it is a 
pursuit of moral discipline, requiring patience, forbearance, and 
command of temper. As connected with natural science, it may 
be vaunted as demanding a knowledge of the habits of a con- 
siderable tribe of created beings, — fishes, and the animals that 
they prey upon, — and an acquaintance with the signs and tokens 
of the weather and its changes, the nature of waters, and of the 
atmosphere. As to its poetical relations, it carries us into the 
most wild and beautiful scenery of nature ; among the mountain 
lakes, and the clear and lovely streams that gush from the higher 
ranges of elevated hills, or that make their way through the 
cavities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the early spring, 
after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts dis- 
appear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander 
forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the 
purple bud, to scent the odors of the bank perfumed by the violet, 
and enamelled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy ; to 
wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright 
blossoms are filled with the music of the bee ; and on the surface 
of the waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like animated 
gems in the sunbeams, while the bright and beautiful trout is 
watching them from below ; to hear the twittering of the water- 
birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves 
beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and, as the 
season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of 
the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the 
trout contend, as it were, for the gaudy May-fly, and till, in pur- 
suing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are 
serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush and melodious 
nightingale, performing the offices of paternal love, in thickets 
ornamented with the rose and woodbine ! 

THE BLESSINGS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH. 

I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others ; not genius, 
power, wit, or fancy : but if I could choose what would be most 
delightful, and I believe most useful, to me, I should prefer a 
firm religious belief to every other blessing ; for it makes life a 
discipline of goodness, — creates new hopes, when all earthly 
hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of 
existence, the most gorgeous of all lights ; awakens life even in 
death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and 



154 DAVr. 

divinity ; makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder 
of ascent to paradise ; and, far above all combinations of earthly- 
hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, 
the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where 
the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, annihila- 
tion, and despair ! 

THE TEMPEST. 

The tempest has darken' d the face of the skies, 
The winds whistle wildly across the waste plain. 

The fiends of the whirlwind terrific arise, 

And mingle the clouds with the white foaming main. 

All dark is the night and all gloomy the shore, 
Save when the red lightnings the ether divide ; 
. Then follows the thunder with loud-sounding roar, 
And echoes in concert the billowy tide. 

But though now all is murky and shaded with gloom, 
Hope, the soother, soft whispers the tempest shall cease : 

Then nature again in her beauty shall bloom, 

And enamor'd embrace the fair, sweet-smiling peace. 

For the bright blushing morning, all rosy with light. 
Shall convey on her wings the creator of day ; 

He shall drive all the tempests and terrors of night, 
And nature, enliven' d, again shall be gay. 

Then the warblers of Spring shall attune the soft lay, 
And again the bright floweret shall l>lush in the vale ; 

On the breast of the ocean the zephyr shall i)lay, 

And the sunbeam shall sleep on the hill and the dale. 

If the tempests of nature so soon sink to rest, ^ 
If her once faded beauties so soon glow again, 

Shall man be forever by tempests opjn-ess'd, — 
By the tempests of passion, of sorrow, and pain ? 

Ah, no ! for his passions and sorrows shall cease 
When the troublesome fever of life shall be o'er : 

In the night of the grave he shall slumber in peace. 
And passion and sorrow shall vex him no more. 

And shall not this night, and its long dismal gloom, 
Like the night of the tempest again pass away ? 

Yes ! the dust of the earth in bright beauty shall bloom, 
And rise to the morning of heavenly day. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTIIOES. 



155 



SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS 
OR FROM 1820 TO 1829 INCLUSIVE. 



^i'Am, t7b//Uy 3f.^. (1747-1822), a London physician, published Even^ 
iiu/s at Home, six vohimes, 17S5; written in conjunction with his sister, 
Mrs, Barbanld, though she wrote not more than a sixth of the whole. 
It was about the first attempt to bring science to the knowledge of general 
readers, and it is still a deservedly popular book. Dr. Aikin also edited 
the British Poets, in 10 volumes. 

Chalmers, George (1742-1825), a Scotch historian, published Caledonia 
(or, Antiquities and Early History of Scotland) ; A Life of Mary Queen 
of Scots; A History of the United Colonies; A Life of Sir David Lyndr 
say, &c. 

Clapperton, Hiig?i (1788-1827), a distinguished African traveller, pub- 
lished Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the Years 
1822-24 ; and Journal of a Second Expedition, &c. To this a Memoir and 
Life is prefixed. Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition into 
Africa, by Eichard Lander. 

ClarA-f JB^dward Daniel (1769-1822), traveller, published very interest- 
ing and instructive volumes of Travels in Russia, Tartary, Greece, Egypt, 
Palestine, and in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, &c., the whole in eleven 
volumes 8vo. 

Combe, William (1741-1823), miscellaneous writer, published Letters of 
the late Lord Lyttleton: these were pseudo-letters, pretending to have 
been written by that " Wicked Lord Lyttleton" : also. The Tour of Dr. 
Syntax in Search of the Picturesque; The Devil upon Two Sticks in Eng- 
land, &c. 

Coa^e, iniliant (1747-1828), Archdeacon of Wilts, published History of 
Austria; Memoirs of Walpole and Marlborough; Historical Tour in Mon- 
mouthshire, &c. His Travels and Historical Works have been published 
in thirty-five volumes 8vo.^ 

Gfjf'ord, Ifllliam (1756-1826), poet, translator, and critic. At the age 
of fifteen apprenticed to a shoemaker; exhibiting much talent, was sent, 
by the kindness of some friends, to Exeter College, Oxford, where he 
distinguished himself as a scholar. In 1794 published The Baviad, a satiri- 
cal poem, directed against the " Delia Cruscans."^ This was followed by 



1 "Coxe's writings throw more light on the 
history of England from the accession of the 
house of Brunswick than any other publication 
whatever." — Lowndes. 

2 "Delia Crusca," literally, of the. Sieve. — 
This was the name of an Academy in Florence, 



founded for the purpose of sifting or purifying 
the Italian language and style. In the lat- 
ter part of the last century some English peo- 
ple at Florence put forth a volume of very 
poor and affected rhymes, under the title of 
The Florence Miscellantj. The infection spread 



156 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



The McEviad in 1796. In 1802 he translated Juvenal} But he is most 
known as the editor of the Quarterly Review, which he edited from the 
year it was started (1808) by Sir Waher Scott until 1824. His political 
prejudices were too strong, and his feelings too bitter, to enable him to do 
justice to any writer who was on the liberal side in politics. 

Sctyley, IHltiani (1745-1820), best known as the first biographer of 
Cowper, published Triumphs of Temper; a poem in six cantos on History; 
</s on Painting; on Epic Poetry;"^ Life of 3Iilton, &c. 



Hunter y ;Anne (1742-1821), wife of the celebrated anatomist John Hun- 
ter, published a very creditable volume of fugitive poetry. 

'Inchbald, 3frs. £Jlizabeth (1753-1821), actress and novelist, produced 
a number of popular plays, the best of which are A Simple Story, and 
Nature and Art. 

£jlox, Ifllli'am (1789-1825), a religious poet, author of The Lonely 
Hearth; Songs of Israel; The Harp of Zion, &c. 

JOee, SopMa (1750-1824), author of various novels and tales. Her chief 
claim to notice, like that of her sister Plarriet (1756-1851), rests on the 
Canterbury Tales, of which she furnished two, — The Young Lady's Tale, 
and The Clergyman's Tale. 

Ji€atu?'i7i, Cftarles ^obe?'t, dramatist and novelist, was curate of St. 
Peter's, Dublin. His tragedies were Bertram and Manuel, the former 
of which is highly commended by Sir Walter Scott: his novels were The 
Milesian Chief; Women; The Wild Irish Boy; and Mclmoth the Wan- 
derer. He died in 1824. 

J^niford, inillam (1744-1827), historian, published (1784-1818) A His- 
tory of Greece, five volumes quarto, since published in ten volumes 8vo. 
For half a century this was considered the standard history of Greece, 
but it has been superseded by the more correct and able woi'ks of Thirl- 
wall and Grote. Mitford looks at his subject from an aristocratic, Grote 
from a democratic, stand-point. 

JVlcholSf Jb/in (1745-1826), for nearly half a century the editor of the 
Gentleman's Magazine, and a most learned antiquarian, is known chiefly 
for his Biographical and, Literary Anecdotes of William Boivyer, Printer, 
and his Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, — fifteen volumes, — 
a perfect storehouse of information concerning prominent, men of the 
eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, being for this 
period what old Anthony Wood's Athenoi Oxoniensis is for the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. 

^avTy ^r. Samuel (1745-1825), curate at Hatton, Warwickshire, was 

distinguished for his great learning and pre-eminent conversational 
powers. His Avorks, chiefly philological, were published by John John- 
stone, M.D., in 1828, in eight volumes 8vo. 
^Inkerton, Jb/in (1758-1825), is chiefly known for his General Collection 



to England, and a writer of the same scliool — 
one Robert Merry — signed himself Ddla Criis- 
ca. Hence this appellation was given to the 
whole brood of writers of that school who 
published Insipid stufl' and called it poetry. 
Gifford's satires put an end to them. For a 
fuller acount of the Delia Crusca school, see 
Wheelers ViclleAiary of Noted Names, &c. 



1 See some specimens in the Compendium of 
Classical Literature. 

2 " Hayley's Epistles on Painting, History, and 
Epic Poetry, written in smooth, correct, and 
flowing versification, but not unfrequently defi- 
cient in energy and compression, inculcate 
much elegant and Judicious criticism, and dif- 
fuse much light over their respective subjects." 
— Dr. Drake. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 157 

of the Best Voyages and Travels in the World, 1808-14, in seventeen 
volumes quarto, with maps and engravings; he also published an Early 
History of Scotland, and Select Scottish Ballads: some of these ballads are 
said to be fabrications by the editor. 

'Plozzi, Hester Xyyic/i (1740-1821) was first married to Mr. Henry 
Thi-ale, a rich brewer, whose house was ahvays open to Dr. Johnson and 
the most eminent literary characters of the day. After the death of 
Mr. Thrale she was married to Signer Piozzi, an Italian music-master. 
She published a number of small works, but is now chiefly known by 
her Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson. 

'Price, Sir Uredale (1747-1829), author of Essays on the Picturesque, and 
Oriticisms on Painters and Paintings. 

^adcliffe, Ann (1764-1823), novelist of the Terrific School, published 
Romance of the Forest; Mysteries of Udolpho; The Italian; A Sicilian 
Romance,^ &c., all of which are written in the "Monk Lewis" style, 
though with much greater purity. 

^ees, ^r. :db?'a/fam (1743-1825), a Unitarian clergyman of great 
learning, published in 1802 the first volume of his Cyclopedia, or Uni- 
verscd Dictionary of Aiis, Sciences, and Literature, illustrated with numerous 
Engravings. The forty-fifth volume of this very learned and valuable 
work was finished in 1819. 

^icardo, S)avid (1772-1823), political economist, the son of a Dutch Jew, 
was an extensive stock-broker. His first publication was a pamphlet on 
The High Price of Bullion, 1809. But his fame rests on a valuable 
treatise, entitled The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817. 

^ich, Claudius Ja?nes (1787-1821), traveller, and resident at Bagdad, 
published two Memoirs on the Ruins of Babylon. After his death hia 
accomplished Avife published his Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan. 

Stewart, ^ugald (1753-1828), Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Plii- 
losophy in the University of Edinburgh. Elements of the Philosophy 
of the Human Mind, three volumes; Philosophiccd Essays, one volume; 
A Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy, 
written in 1815 for the Encyclopcedia Britannica; A Vieiv of the Active 
and Moral Powers of Man; and Outlines of Moral Philosophy. Few men 
exerted a wider influence upon the mind of the early part of the nine- 
teenth century than this eloquent philosopher: for thirty or forty years hLs 
works were text-books in our best colleges.^ 

Williams, Sele7i 3faria (1762-1827), published a volume of Poems; 
also Letters f rain France; Travels in Switzerland, &c. ; but she will ever be 
best remembered for her beautiful sacred lyric, — 

" While Thee I seek, protecting Power, 
Be my vain wishes still'd," &c. 



1 Mrs. Radcliffe is styled by Dr. Drake " the 
Shakspeare of romance-writers, who to the 
wild hindscape of Salvator Rosa has added the 
softer graces of a Claude." But her novels, 
once so popular, are now seldom read. 

- " All the years I remained about Edin- 
burgh," says Mr. James, the historian of In- 



dia, " I used, as often as I could, to steal into 
Mr. Stewart's class to hear a lecture, which 
was always a high treat. I have heard Pitt 
and Fox deliver some of their most admired 
speeches, but I never heard any thing nearly 
so eloquent as some of the lectures of Pro- 
fessor Stewart." 



14 



158 HAZLITT, 



J'^urth i^rudt 



WILLIAM HAZLITT, 1778-18S0. 

"William Hazlitt, a distinguished critic and miscellaneous writer, was the 
son of a Unitarian clergyman of Shropshire, and was born on the 10th of 
April, 1778. After having received his academical education at the college in 
Hackney, in Middlesex, he commenced life as a painter, and by this means 
gained an accurate knowledge of the principles of the arts. He, however, soon 
left the pencil for the pen, and, instead of painting pictures, it became his 
delight to criticize them. After having made various contributions to the 
periodical journals, he published an essay on the Principles of Human Action, 
a work which displayed considerable ingenuity and acuteness. This was 
followed, in 1808, by The Eloquence of the British Senate, a selection of the best 
parliamentary speeches since the time of Charles I., with notes, two volumes 
octavo. 

In 1810 appeared his New and Improved English Grammar, for the use of 
Schools, in which are incorporated the discoveries of Mr. Home Tooke and 
other modern writers on the formation of language. In 1817 was published 
The Round Table, a collection of Essays on Men, Literature, and Manners, 
which had previously appeared in the periodical called The Examiner. These 
were succeeded by his Characters of Shakspeare's Plays, a View of the English 
Stage, and Lectures on English Poetry, which he delivered at the Surrey 
Institiition. After this appeared, from time to time, his contributions to 
various periodicals, under the titles of Table-Talk, the Spirit of the Age, the 
Plain Speaker, and the Litey^ature of the Elizabethan Age. His largest and most 
elaborate work is his Life of Napoleon, in four volumes, which appeared in 
1828, — a production which has given him a high rank among the philosophers 
and historians of the present age. Mr. Ilazlitt also contributed many articles 
to the Edinburgh Review, some of which possess great merit. He continued to 
write and publish till the year of his death, which took place on the 18th of 
September, 1830. 

The writings of Mr. Hazlitt display much originality and genius, united 
with great critical acuteness and brilliancy of fancy. In the fine arts, the 
drama, and dramatic literature, he was considered one of the ablest critics of 
the day. His essays are full of wisdom, and it is almost impossible to rise 
from a perusal of them without having gained some original and striking 
ideas and very valuable thoughts. His Characters of Shakspeare's Plays, and 
his Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, are among the 
most interesting and instructive books in English literature. His admiration 
for the writers of that period was intense, and he descants upon their beauties 
with great eloquence and joyous enthusiasm. An able and discriminating 
writer thus speaks of him: "His mind resembles the 'rich strande' which 
Spenser has so nobly described, and to which he has himself likened the age 
of Elizabeth, where treasures of every description lie, without order, in inex- 
haustible profusion. Noble masses of exquisite marble are there, which might 
be fashioned to support a glorious temple; and gems of peerless lustre, which 



HAZLITT. 



159 



would adorn the holiest shrine. lie has no lack of the deepest feeling, the 
profoundest sentiments of humanity, or the loftiest aspirations after ideal good. 
But there are no great leading principles of taste to give singleness to his 
aims, nor any central points in his mind, around which his feelings may 
revolve and his imaginations cluster." ^ Allowing this to be true, there yet 
remains enough to constitute him one of the most tasteful, discriminating, and 
genial critics in the English language.^ 

THE LITERATURE OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 

The age of Elizabeth was distinguished beyond, perhaps, any- 
other in our history by a number of great men, famous in different 
ways, and whose names have come down to us with unblemished 
honors, — statesmen, warriors, divines, scholars, poets, and phi- 
losophers : Raleigh, Drake, Coke, Hooker, and higher and more 
sounding still, and still more frequent in our mouths, Shakspeare, 
Spenser, Sidney, Bacon, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, — men 
wdiom fame has eternized in her long and lasting scroll, and who, 
by their words and acts, were benefactors of their country and 
ornaments of human nature. Their attainments of different kinds 
bore the same general stamp, and it was sterling : what they did 
had the mark of their age and country upon it. Perhaps the 
genius of Great Britain (if I may so speak without offence or 
flattery) never shone out fuller or brighter, or looked more like 
itself, than at this period. 

The first cause I shall mention, as contributing to this general 
effect, was the Reformation, which had just then taken place. 
This event gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to 
thought and inquiry, and agitated the inert mass of accumulated 
prejudices throughout Europe. The effect of the concussion w^as 
general ; but the shock was greatest in this country. It toppled 
down the full-grown intolerable abuses of centuries at a blow ; 
heaved the ground from under the feet of bigoted faith and 
slavish obedience ; and the roar and dashing of opinions, loosened 
from their accustomed hold, might be heard like the noise of an 
angry sea, and has never yet subsided. Germany first broke the 
spell of misbegotten fear, and gave the watchword ; but Englanc' 
joined the shout, and echoed it back with her island voice, from 
her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a longer and a louder 
strain. With that cry the genius of Great Britain rose, and 
threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty 
fermentation : the waters were out ; public opinion was in a state 
of projection. Liberty was held out to all to think and speak 
the truth. Men's brains were busy ; their spirits stirring ; their 



1 Eilinhurgh Review, xxxiv. 440. 

2 Read Literary Remains of Mr. Hazlitt, &c., 
by E. L. Bulvver, 2 vols.; also articles upon 
his various works in the Edinburgh Review, 



xxviii. 72, and Ixiv. 395 ; and in the London 
Quarterly, xvii. 174, xix. 424, and xsvi. 103; 
also American Quarterly, xx. 265. 



160 EAZLITT. 

hearts full ; and their hands not idle. Their eyes were opened 
to expect the greatest things, and their ears burned with curiosity 
and zeal to know the truth, that the truth might make them free. 
The death-blow which had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated 
hypocrisy loosened their tongues, and made the talismans and 
love-tokens of Popish superstition, with which she had beguiled 
her followers and committed abominations with the people, fall 
harmless from their necks. 

The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great 
work. It threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of 
religion and morality which had been there locked up as in a 
shrine. It revealed the visions of the prophets, and conveyed 
the lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest of the people. It 
gave them a common interest in a common cause. Their hearts 
burned within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, 
by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. It 
cemented their union of character and sentiment; it created 
endless diversity and collision of opinion. They found objects to 
employ their faculties, and a motive in the magnitude of the con- 
sequences attached to them, to exert the utmost eagerness in the 
pursuit of truth and the most daring intrepidity in maintaining 
it. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding by the 
subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and embraces 
the will by their infinite importance. We perceive in the history 
of this period a nervous masculine intellect. No levity, no feeble- 
ness, no indifl'erence ; or, if there were, it is a relaxation from the 
intense activity which gives a tone to its general character. But 
there is a gravity approaching to piety ; a seriousness of im- 
pression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor 
and enthusiasm in their method of handling almost every subject. 
The debates of the schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough ; but 
they wanted interest and grandeur, and were besides confined to 
a few ; they did not affect the general mass of the community. 
But the Bible was thrown open to all ranks and conditions " to 
run and read," with its wonderful table of contents from Genesis 
to the Revelation. Every village in England would present the 
scenes so well described in Burns's " Cotter's Saturday Night." 
I cannot think that all this variety and weight of knowledge 
could be thrown in all at once upon the minds of the people and 
not make some impression upon it, the traces of which might be 
discerned in the manners and literature of the age. For, to leave 
more disputable points, and take only the historical parts of the 
Old Testament or the moral sentiments of the New, there is 
nothing like them in the power of exciting awe and admiration 
or of riveting sympathy. We see what Milton has made of the 
account of the Creation, from the manner in which he has treated 
it, imbued and impregnated with the spirit of the time of which 



UAZLITT. 161 

we speak. Or what is there equal (in that romantic interest and 
patriarchal simplicity which goes to the heart of a country, and 
rouses it, as it were, from its lair in wastes and wildernesses) to 
the story of Joseph and his Brethren, of Rachel and Laban, of 
Jacob's Dream, of Ruth and Boaz, the descrij^tions in the book 
of Job, the deliverance of the Jews out of Egypt, or the account 
of their captivity and return from Babylon? There is in all 
these parts of the Scripture and numberless more of the same 
kind — to pass over the Orphic hymns of David, the prophetic 
denunciations of Isaiah, or the gorgeous visions of Ezekiel — an 
originality, a vastness of conception, a depth and tenderness of 
feeling, and a touching simplicity in the mode of narration, 
which he who does not feel need be made of no " penetrable 
stuft"." 

There is something in the character of Christ too (leaving 
religious faith quite out of the question) of more sweetness and 
majesty, and more likely to work a change in the mind of man 
by the contemplation of its idea alone, than any to be found in 
history, whether actual or feigned. This character is that of 
sublime humanity, such as was never seen on earth before nor 
since. This shone manifestly both in his words and actions. We 
see it in his washing the disciples' feet the night before his death, 
— that unspeakable instance of humility and love, above all art, 
all meanness, and all pride ; and in the leave he took of them on 
that occasion : " My peace I give unto you, that peace which the 
world cannot give, give I unto you ;" and in his last command- 
ment, that " they should love one another." Who can read the 
account of his behavior on the cross, when, turning to his mother, 
he said, " Woman, behold thy son !" and to the disciple John, 
"Behold thy mother!" and "from that hour that disciple took 
her to his own home," without having his heart smote within 
him ? We see it in his treatment of the woman taken in adul- 
tery, and in his excuse for the woman who poured precious oint- 
ment on his garment as an offering of devotion and love, which 
is here all in all. His religion was the religion of the heart. We 
see it in his discourse with the disciples as they walked together 
towards Emmaus, when their hearts burned within them ; in his 
Sermon from the Mount, in his parable of the Good Samaritan, 
and in that of the Prodigal Son, — in every act and word of his 
life, a grace, a mildness, a dignity and love, a patience and wis- 
dom, worthy of the Son of God. His whole life and being were 
imbued, steeped, in this word, charity: it was the spring, the well- 
head, from which every thought and feeling gushed into act; 
and it was this that breathed a mild glory from his face in that 
last agony upon the cross, " when the meek Saviour bowed his 
head and died," praying for his enemies. He was the first true 
teacher of morality ; for he alone conceived the idea of a pure 



162 HAZLITT. 

humanity. He redeemed man from the worship of that idol, 
self, and instructed him by precept and example to love his 
neighbor as himself, to forgive our enemies, to do good to those 
that curse us and despitefuUy use us. He taught the love of 
good for the sake of good, without regard to personal or sinister 
views, and made the aifections of the heart the sole seat of mo- 
rality, instead of the pride of the understanding or the sternness 
of the will. In answering the question, " Who is our neighbor?" 
as one who stands in need of our assistance and whose wounds 
we can bind up, he has done more to humanize the thoughts and 
tame the unruly passions than all who have tried to reform and 
benefit mankind. 

The very idea of abstract benevolence, of the desire to do good 
because another wants our services, and of regarding the human 
race as one family, the offspring of one common parent, is hardly 
to be found in any other code or system. It was " to the Jews a 
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." The Greeks 
and Romans never thought of considering others but as they 
were Greeks or Romans, as they were bound to them by certain 
positive ties, or, on the other hand, as separated from them by 
fiercer antipathies. Their virtuigs were the virtues of political 
machines, their vices were the vices of demons, ready to inflict or 
to endure pain with obdurate and remorseless inflexibility of pur- 
pose. But in the Christian religion " we perceive a softness 
coming over the heart of a nation, and the iron scales that fence 
and harden it melt and drop off"." It becomes malleable, capable 
of pity, of forgiveness, of relaxing in its claims, and remitting its 
230vver. We strike it, and it does not hurt us : it is not steel or 
marble, but flesh and blood, clay tempered with tears, and " soft 
as sinews of the new-born babe." The gospel was first preached 
to the poor ; for it consulted their wants and interests, not its 
own pride and arrogance. It first promulgated the equality of 
mankind in the community of duties and benefits. It denounced 
the iniquities of the chief-priests and Pharisees, and declared 
itself at variance with principalities and powers ; for it sympa- 
thizes not with the oppressor, but the oppressed. It first abolished 
slavery ; for it did not consider the power of the will to inflict 
injury as clothing it with a right to do so. Its law is good, not 
power. It at the same time tended to wean the mind from the 
grossness of sense, and a particle of its divine flame was lent to 
brighten and purify the lamp of love. 

3IACBETII AND RICHARD THE THIRD COMPARED. 

The leading features in the character of Macbeth are striking 
enough, and they form what may be thought at first only a bold, 
rude, Gothic outline. By comparing it with other characters of 



HAZLITT. 163 

the same author, we shall perceive the absolute truth and iden- 
tity which is observed in the midst of the giddy whirl and rapid 
career of events. With powerful and masterly strokes, for in- 
stance, he has marked the different effects of ambition and 
cruelty, operating on different dispositions and in different cir- 
cumstances, in his Macbeth and Richard III. Both are tyrants, 
usurpers, murderers ; both violent and ambitious ; both courageous, 
cruel, treacherous. But Richard is cruel from nature and con- 
stitution. Macbeth becomes so from accidental circumstances. 
Richard is from his birth deformed in body and mind, and natu- 
rally incapable of good. Macbeth is full of " the milk of human 
kindness," is frank, sociable, generous. He is urged to the com- 
mission of guilt by golden opportunity, by the instigations of his 
wife, and by prophetic warnings. " Fate and metaphysical aid" 
conspire against his virtue and his loyalty. Richard, on the 
contrary, needs no prompter, but wades through a series of crimes 
to the height of his ambition, from the ungovernable violence of 
his jDassions and a restless love of mischief. He is never gay but 
in the prospect or in the success of his villanies ; Macbeth is full 
of horror at the thoughts of the murder of Duncan, which he is 
with difficulty prevailed on to commit, and of remorse after its 
perpetration. Richard has no mixture of common humanity in 
his composition, no regard to kindred or posterity ; he owns no 
fellowship with others, but is " himself alone." Macbeth endea- 
vors to escape from reflection on his crimes by repelling their 
consequences, and banishes remorse for the past by the medita- 
tion of future mischief* This is not the j^i'inciple of Richard's 
cruelty, which resembles the cold malignity, the wanton malice 
of a fiend, rather than the frailty of human nature. Macbeth is 
goaded on to acts of violence and retaliation by necessity ; to 
Richard, blood is a pastime. There are other essential differ- 
ences. Richard is a man of the world; a vulgar, plotting, 
hardened villain, wholly regardless of every thing but his own 
ends and the means to accomplish them. Not so Macbeth. The 
superstitions of the age, the rude state of society, the local scenery 
and customs, all give a wildness and imaginary grandeur to his 
character. From the strangeness of the events that surround 
him, he is full of amazement and fear, and stands in doubt be- 
tween the world of reality and the world of fancy. He sees 
sights not shown to mortal eye, and hears unearthly music. All 
is tumult and disorder within and without his mind ; his pur- 
poses recoil upon himself, are broken and disjointed ; he is the 
double thrall of his passions and his evil destiny. He treads 
upon the brink of fate, and grows dizzy with his situation. 
Richard is not a character either of imagination or pathos, but 
of pure will. There is no conflict of opposite feelings in his 
breast. The apparitions which he sees only haunt him in his 



164 HALL. 

sleep ; nor does he live, like Macbeth, in a waking dream. There 
is nothing tight or compact in Macbeth, no tenseness of fibre nor 
pointed decision of manner. He has indeed considerable energy 
and manliness of soul ; but then he is " subject to all the skyey- 
influences." He is sure of nothing. All is left at issue. He 
runs a tilt with fortune, and is baffled with preternatural riddles. 
The agitation of his mind resembles the rolling of the sea in a 
storm, or he is like a lion in the toils, — fierce, impetuous, and 
ungovernable. Richard, in the busy turbulence of his projects, 
never loses his self-possession, and makes use of every circum- 
stance that occurs as an instrument of his long-reaching designs. 
In his last extremity we can only regard him as a captured Avild 
beast ; but we never entirely lose our concern for Macbeth, and 
he calls back all our sympathy by that fine close of thoughtful 
melancholy, — 

'' My May of life 
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf: 
And that which should accompany old age, 
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
I must not look to have ; but, in their stead, . 
Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath. 
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not." 



ROBERT HALL, 176^-1831. 

This eminent writer and preacher, the son of a Baptist clergyman in Arnsby, 
Leicestershire, was born at that place on the 2d of May, 17G4. He received 
the early part of his education in Northampton School, where he made great 
progress in Latin and Greek, and in his fifteenth year he was removed to 
Bristol Theological Seminary, under the direction of the Baptists. In 1780 he 
was solemnly " set apart" as a preacher of the gospel, in connection with the 
Baptists; and, about a year after, he was sent to King's College, Aberdeen, 
where, among other friendships, he formed that of Mr. (afterward Sir) James 
Mackintosh, which continued through life. In 1783 he was associated with 
Dr. Evans, as assistant pastor in the church at Bristol, and became also 
classical tutor at the academy in that city. From the very commencement 
of his ministrations, Mr. Hall's preaching attracted an unusual degree of 
attention. His eloquence, remarkable alike for its brilliancy and its force, was 
a theme of general praise; and, by his instructive and fascinating conversa- 
tion in private, he called forth equal admiration. 

In 1790 he succeeded the celebrated Robert Robinson, as minister of the 
Baptist congregation at Cambridge, where he labored with increasing repu- 
tation till 1804, when he was afflicted by a mental aberration, from which, 
however, he recovered sufficiently to discharge his pastoral duties in 1805,* 
but toward the close of that year he unhappily suffered a relapse, and it was 
deemed essential for his perfect restoration that he should pass a considerable 
time in tranquil retirement. Accordingly, he resigned his otfice at Cambridge 



HALL. 



1G5 



in 1806, when his congregation testified their deep sense of his merits by pur- 
chasing for him an annuity for life. The effect of these attacks upon his 
health was to make him examine his own religious exercises with more 
scrutinizing faithfulness, and to consecrate himself more entirely to God. 
'* His piety assumed a more exalted tone, his habits became more strictly 
devotional, and his exercises more fervent and elevated than they had ever 
hitherto been; and he watched with jealous care over the whole tenor of his 
conduct, as well as every movement of his heart." 

His mental faculties being now completely restored, he accepted the invita- 
tion from a church in Leicester to become their pastor. Over this congrega- 
tion he presided twenty years, a period undistinguished by any incident of 
very particular moment, excei:)ting his marriage, which took place in March, 
1808. During his residence here he contributed many valuable articles to the 
Eclectic Review, and also engaged in a religious controversy upon what is 
called the Terms of Communion, advocating, with his usual energy, learning, 
and eloquence, the larinciple of Open Communion. 

In 1826 he removed to Bristol, the place where his ministerial career began, 
and where it was destined soon to come to a close. His pastoral duties were 
discharged with his usual faithfulness, but it soon became apparent that his 
health was declining. In 1830 he was compelled to try a change of air and 
scene. No ultimate benefit, however, was derived from this movement; and, 
after suffering severely from a complication of disorders, he dej^arted this life 
on the 21st of February, 1831. 

Eobert Hall was not only the most distinguished ornament of the Christian 
body to which he belonged, but, as a preacher, his claims to pre-eminence 
were acknowledged by competent judges of every creed. His mental endow- 
ments were of a very high order, and his excellency consisted not in the pre- 
dominance of one, but in the exquisite proportion and harmony of all his 
powers. A mind of naturally great capacity had been enriched by a course 
of reading of unusual extent, and he was thus enabled to draw his illustrations 
from an almost infinite variety of sources. His oratory was brilliant, but not 
unnecessarily showy or encumbered with poetical images. His style is at 
once clear and simple, and the construction of his sentences is characterized 
by ease, united with strength and compactness: so that his works display a 
union of elevation, learning, and elegance to which it will be difficult to find 
a parallel among the works of divines.^ 

As to his personal character, it was every thing becoming a Christian. His 
piety was pure, sincere, exalted, and untainted by bigotry or intolerance. As 
a pastor, he was zealous, affectionate, and indefatigable in tlie discharge of his 



1 " Mr. Hall, like Bishop Taylor, has the elo- 
qnence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the 
acuteness of a schoolman, the profoundness of 
a philosopher, and the piety of a saint." — Dr. 
Parr. 

" There is a living wi-iter who combines the 
beauties of Johnson, Addison, and Burke, with- 
out their imperfections. It is a dissenting 
minister ot Cambridge, the Kev. Robert Hall. 
Whoever Anshes to see the English language 
in its perfection must read his writings." — 
DuGALD Stewart. 

"The richness, variety, and extent of his 
knowledge are not so remarkable as his abso- 



lute mastery over it. He moves about in the 
loftiest sphere of contemplation as though he 
were ' native and endued to its element.' He 
uses the finest classical allusions, the noblest 
images, and the most exquisite Avords, as 
though they were those that came first to his 
mind and which formed his natural dialect. 
There is not the least appearance of striving 
after greatness in his most magnificent excur- 
sions ; but he rises to the loftiest heights with 
a childlike ease. His style is one of the clear- 
est and simplest — the least encumbered with 
its own beauty — of any which has ever been 
written."— iondcOT Magazine, February, 1821. 



166 



HALL. 



duties. In him, benevolence and humility were conspicuous, and he united 
warmth of affection to great strength of intellect. In social life he was open, 
communicative, sincere, and uflostentatious.^ 

Indeed, the world has seldom seen a character that united so much both of 
mind and heart, extensive learning, profoundness of thought, great eloquence, 
sincere and unaffected piety, and a benevolence that embraced the good of the 
whole human race.^ 

HOMER AND MILTON, 

Perhaps few authors have been distinguished by more similar 
features of character than Homer and Milton. That vastness of 
thought which fills the imagination, and that sensibility of spirit 
which renders every circumstance interesting, are the qualities of 
both ; but Milton is the most sublime, and Homer the most pic- 
turesque. Homer lived in an early age, before knowledge was 
much advanced ; he would derive little from any acquired abilities, 
and therefore may be styled the poet of nature. To this source, 
perhaps, we may trace the principal difference between Homer 
and Milton. The Grecian poet was left to the movements of his 
own mind, and to the influence of that variety of passions Avhich 
are common to all : his conceptions are therefore distinguished by 
their simplicity and force. In Milton, who was skilled in almost 
every dejjartment of science, learning seems sometimes to have 
shaded the splendor of genius. 

No epic poet excites emotions so fervid as Homer, or possesses 
so much fire ; but in point of sublimity he cannot be compared to 
Milton. I rather think the Greek poet has been thought to excel 
in this quality more than he really does, for want of a proper 
conception of its effects. When the perusal of an author raises 
us above our usual tone of mind, we immediately ascribe those 
sensations to the sublime, without considering whether they light 
on the imagination or the feelings, — whether they elevate the 
fancy or only fire the passions. 

The sublime has for its object the imagination only, and its in- 
fluence is not so much to occasion any fervor of feeling as the 
calmness of fixed astonishment. If we consider the sublime as 
thus distinguished from every other quality, Milton will appear 
to possess it in an unrivalled degree ; and here indeed lies the 
secret of his power. The perusal of Homer inspires us with an 
ardent sensibility ; Milton, with the stillness of surprise. The one 
fills and delights the mind with the confluence of various emo- 
tions : the other amazes with the vastness of his ideas. The move- 



1 The degree of Doctor of Divinity was con- 
ferred upon him; hut, believing it unscrip- 
tural, he never assumed the title. 

2 The collected works of Robert Hall, with 
various posthumous productions, and a memoir 
of his life by Dr. Gregory, and a critical esti- 



mate of his character and writings by John 
Foster, were published in 1832, in six volumes 
8vo. Read an article in the Edinburgh Re- 
view, xlv. 147 ; another in the Quarterly, xlviii. 
100; and an excellent article, in thQ North Bri- 
tish Review, iv. 54. 



HALL. 



167 



ments of Milton's mind are steady and progressive : he carries 
the fancy through successive stages of elevation, and gradually 
increases the heat by adding fuel to the fire. 

The flights of Homer are more sudden and transitory. Milton, 
whose mind was enlightened by science, appears the most com- 
prehensive : he shows more acuteness in his reflections and more 
sublimity of thought. Homer, who lived more with men, and 
had, perhaps, a deeper tincture of the human passions, is by far 
the most vehement and picturesque. To the view of Milton the 
wide scenes of the universe seem to have been thrown open, which 
he regards with a cool and comprehensive survey, little agitated, 
and superior to those emotions which affect inferior mortals. 
Homer, when he rises the highest, goes not beyond the bounds 
of human nature : he still connects his descriptions with human 
passions, and though his ideas have less sublimity, they have 
more fire. The appetite for greatness — that appetite which always 
grasps at more than it can contain — is never so fully satisfied as 
in the perusal of Paradise Lost. In following Milton we grow 
familiar with new worlds, we traverse the immensities of space, 
wandering in amazement, and finding no bounds. Homer con- 
fines the mind to a narrower circle ; but that circle he brings 
nearer to the eye : he fills it with a quicker succession of objects, 
and makes it the scene of more interesting action. 



A PATRIOTS DUTY TO HIS COUNTRY.'^ 

To form an adequate idea of the duties of this crisis, it will be 
necessary to raise your minds to a level with your station, to extend 
your views to a distant futurity, and to consequences the most 
certain, though most remote. By a series of criminal enterprises, 
by the successes of guilty ambition, the liberties of Europe have 
been gradually extinguished ; the subjugation of Holland, Switzer- 
land, and the free towns of Germany has completed that catas- 
trophe ; and we are the only people in the eastern hemisphere Avho 
are in possession of equal laws and a free constitution. Freedom, 
driven from every spot on the Continent, has sought an asylum 
in a country which she always chose for her favorite abode ; but 
she is pursued even here, and threatened with destruction. The 
inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole earth, 
threatens to follow us here ; and we are most exactly, most critic- 
ally placed, in the only aperture where it can be successfully re- 
pelled, — in the Thermopylae of the universe. As far as the inte- 
rests of ^freedom are concerned, — the most important by far of 



1 From a sermon preached before a company 
of volunteers on " The Sentiments proper to 
the Present Crisis," at Bristol, October 19, 1803, 



being the day appointed for a General Fast. 
Napoleon was then at the height of his power, 
and threatened the liberties of all Europe. 



168 HALL. 

sublunary interests, — you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity 
of the federal representatives of the human race ; for with you it 
is to determine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity 
shall be born ; their fortunes are intrusted to your care, and on 
your conduct at this moment depend the color and complexion 
of their destiny. If liberty, after being extinguished on the Con- 
tinent, is suffered to expire here, whence is it ever to emerge in 
the midst of that thick night that will invest it ? It remains with 
you, then, to decide whether that freedom, at whose voice the 
kingdoms of Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career 
of virtuous emulation in every thing great and good ; the freedom 
which dispelled the mists of superstition, and invited the nations 
to behold their God; whose magic touch kindled the rays of 
genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence ; the 
freedom which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embel- 
lished life with innumerable institutions and improvements, till 
it became a theatre of wonders ; it is for you to decide whether 
this freedom shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeral pall, 
and wrapt in eternal gloom. It is not necessary to await your 
determination. In the solicitude you feel to approve yourselves 
worthy of such a trust, every thought of what is afilicting in war- 
fare, every apprehension of danger must vanish, and you are im- 
patient to mingle in the battles of the civilized world. Go, then, 
ye defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious 
omen ; advance with alacrity into the field, where God Himself 
musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in 
your success not to lend you her aid; she will shed over this 
enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged in the 
field, many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary ; the 
faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power 
with God; the feeble hands which are unequal to any other 
weapon will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriads 
of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, 
and Aveeping will mingle in its ascent to heaven with the shouts 
of battle and the shock of arms. 

While you have every thing to fear from the success of the 
enemy, you have every means of preventing that success, so that 
it is next to impossible for victory not to crown your exertions. 
The extent of your resources, under God, is equal to the justice 
of your cause. But should Providence determine otherwise, 
should you fall in this struggle, should the nation fall, you will 
have the satisfaction (the purest allotted to man) of having per- 
formed your part; your names will be enrolled with the most 
illustrious dead ; while posterity, to the end of time, as often as 
they revolve the events of this period (and they will incessantly 
revolve them), will turn to you a reverential eye, while they 
mourn over the freedom which is entombed in your sepulchre. I 



HALL. 169 

cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots, 
of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats 
to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought 
to a favorable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that 
repose, illustrious immortals ! Your mantle fell when you ascended ; 
and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread 
in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and liveth for ever and ever, they will protect Freedom in her 
last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by 
your labors and cemented with your blood. And Thou, sole 
Ruler among the children of men, to whom the shields of the 
earth belong, gird on Thy sword, thou Most Mighty, go forth 
with our hosts in the day of battle ! Impart, in addition to their 
hereditary valor, that confidence of success which springs from 
Thy presence! Pour into their hearts the sjDirit of departed 
heroes ! Inspire them with Thine own ; and, while led by Thine 
hand, and fighting under Thy banners, open Thou their eyes to 
behold in every valley, and in every plain, what the prophet 
beheld by the same illumination, — chariots of fire, and horses of 
fire ! Then shall the strong man he as tow, and the maker of it as 
a spark; and they shall both burn together, and no7ie shall quench 
them. 

THE BIBLE. 

The Bible is the treasure of the poor, the solace of the sick, 
and the support of the dying ; and, while other books may amuse 
and instruct in a leisure hour, it is the peculiar triumph of that 
book to create light in the midst of darkness, to alleviate the 
sorrow which admits of no other alleviation, to direct a beam of 
hope to the heart which no other topic of consolation can reach ; 
while guilt, despair, and death vanish at the touch of its holy 
inspiration. There is something in the spirit and diction of the 
Bible which is found peculiarly adapted to arrest the attention 
of the plainest and most uncultivated minds. The simple struc- 
ture of its sentences, combined with a lofty spirit of poetry, — its 
familiar allusions to the scenes of nature and the transactions of 
common life, — the delightful intermixture of narration wuth the 
doctrinal and preceptive parts, and the profusion of miraculous 
facts, which convert it into a sort of enchanted ground, — its con- 
stant advertence to the Deity, whose perfections it renders almost 
visible and palpable, — unite in bestowing upon it an interest 
which attaches to no other performance, and which, after assi- 
duous and repeated perusal, invests it wdth much of the charm 
of novelty ; like the great orb of day, at which we are wont to 
gaze with unabated astonishment from infancy to old age. What 
other book besides the Bible could be heard in public assemblies 
from year to year, with an attention that never tires and an in- 

15 



170 MACKENZIE. 

terest that never cloys ? With few exceptions, let a portion of 
the Sacred Volume be recited in a mixed multitude, and, though 
it has been heard a thousand times, a universal stillness ensues, 
every eye is fixed, and every ear is awake and attentive. Select, 
if you can, any other composition, and let it be rendered equally 
familiar to the mind, and see whether it will produce this effect. 



HENRY MACKENZIE, 17J^-1831. 

Henry Mackenzie, the son of Dr. Joshua Mackenzie, an eminent physician 
of Edinburgh, was born in that city in 1745. After being educated at the 
High School and University of Edinburgh, Mr. Mackenzie engaged in the 
study of the law, and became an attorney in the Court of the Exchequer, in 
that city, in the latter end of the year 1766. In the year 1771 appeared, anony- 
mously, the work for which he is chiefly celebrated, entitled The Man of Feel- 
ing. It rose immediately to great popularity, and was followed, a few years 
after, by The Man of the World, which, though somewhat inferior to the former, 
breathes the same tone of exquisite sensibility. In the first-named work, the 
author paints his hero as constantly obedient to every emotion of his moral 
sense; in the Man of the World, on the contrary, he exhibits a person rushing 
headlong into vice and ruin, and spreading misery all around him, by endea- 
voring to grasp at happiness in defiance of the moral sense. In 1778, having 
become a member of a new literary society in Edinburgh, he suggested the in- 
stitution of a new periodical paper similar to the Spectator. The scheme was 
speedily carried into effect, and the papers, under the title of The Miy'vor, of 
which Mr. Mackenzie was the editor, were published in weekly numbers, and 
Avere subsequently republished with the names of the authors,' in three duo- 
decimo volumes. 

To the Mirror succeeded the Lounger, — a periodical of similar character, and 
equally successful. Mr. Mackenzie was the most valuable contributor to both 
these works. His papei's are distinguished from all the rest by that sweetness 
and beauty of style, and tenderness of feeling, which form the peculiar cliarac- 
ter of his writings. Mr. Mackenzie, in the Lounger, No. 97, was the first to 
appreciate the genius of Burns, in a review of his poems then recently pub- 
lished, by which the poet was brought into public notice, and prevented from 
quitting his country, as he intended, for the West Indies. After this, Mr. 
Mackenzie published a number of dramas ; but, though they possessed con- 
sidei-able merit as literary productions, they were not successful on the stage. 
Ilis celebrity is derived principally from his Essays and his Man of Feeling, 
which are characterized by a beauty of style, depth of pathos, and delicacy of 
imagination that will always render them popular. In private life, Mr. 
Mackenzie "was not more distinguished by the wit with which he enlivened 
a numerous circle of attached friends, than the benevolence and wisdom with 
which he counselled and assisted them." This ornament of his native city 



1 The "Mirror Club" consisted of Mr. Mac- 1 Cullcn, Mr. Bannatyne, Mr.Macleod, Mr. Aber 
kenzie (the chief contributor), Mr. Craig, Mr. | croinbic, Mr. George Home, and a few others 



MACKENZIE. 



171 



died at Edinburgh, at the advanced age of eighty-six, from the decay of nature 
rather than from disease, on the 14th of January, 1831.^ 

Few modern Avriters have been more fortunate than Mr. Mackenzie in their 
appeals to the heart; and his fictions in the Mirror hold a conspicuous rank 
among the best efforts in pathetic composition. The story of La Roche, in Nos. 
42, 43, and 44, has been frequently republished as a tract. Scarcely, if at all, 
inferior to this, in true delicacy and pathos, is the touching narration in No. 
49, — the Story of Nancy Collins. In humorous delineation, also, Mr. Mackenzie 
has presented us with various specimens. The descriptions of the Homespun 
Family in the Mirror, and of the Mushroom Family in the Lounger, are told in 
such a delicate vein of irony, satire, and humor, as to rival the best papers of 
that character in the Spectator of Addison. 



THE HOMESPUN FAMILY. 
To the Author of the "Mirror." 

Sir : — Some time ago I troubled you with a letter giving an 
account of a particular sort of grievance felt by the families of 
men of small fortunes, from their acquaintance with those of 
great ones. I am emboldened, by the favorable reception of my 
first letter, to write you a second upon the same subject. 

You will remember, sir, my account of a visit which my daugh- 
ters paid to a great lady in our neighborhood, and of the effects 
which that visit had upon them. I was beginning to hope that 
time and the sobriety of manners which home exhibited would 
restore them to their former situation, when, unfortunately, a 
circumstance happened still more fatal to me than their expedi- 
tion to . This, sir, was the honor of a visit from the great 

lady in return. 

I was just returning from the superintendence of my ploughs 
in a field I have lately enclosed, when I was met on the green 
before my door by a gentleman (for such I took him to be) 
mounted upon a very handsome gelding, who asked me, by the 
appellation of honest friend, if this was not Mr. Homespun's; 
and, in the same breath, w^hether the ladies were at home. I 
told him my name was Homespun, the house was mine, and my 
wife and daughters were, I believed, within. Upon this the youn^ 
man, pulling off his hat, and begging my pardon for- calling me 
honest, said he was despatched by Lady with her compli- 
ments to Mrs. and Misses Homespun, and that, if convenient, she 
intended herself the honor of dining with them on her return 



1 A complete edition of his works was pub- 
lished at Edinburgh, in 8 vols. 8vo, in 1808. 
Sir Walter Scott held the talents of Mr. Mac- 
kenzie in great estimation, and, in dedicating 
to him the novel of Wtivurleij, styled him the 
Scotch Addison. In snmming up his merits 
as a novelist and essayist, the same high au- 
thority observes, " The historian of the Home- 



spun Family may place his narrative, without 
fear of shame, by the side of the Vicar of Wake- 
field; and many passages in those papers, 
which he contributed to the Mirror and 
Lounger, attest with what truth, spirit, and 
ease he could describe, assume, and sustain a 
variety of characters." 



172 MACKENZIE. 

from B Park (the seat of another great and rich lady in our 

neighborhood). 

I confess, Mr. Mirror, I was struck somewhat of a heap with 
the message, and it would not, in all probability, have received 
an immediate answer had it not been overheard by my eldest 
daughter, who had come to the window on the appearance of a 
stranger. " Mr. Papillot," said she, immediately, " I rejoice to 
see you ; I hope your lady and all the family are well." " Very 
mucli at your service, ma'am," he replied, with a low bow ; " my 
lady sent me before with the offer of her best compliments, and 
that, if convenient," — and so forth, repeating his words to me. 
" She does us infinite honor," said my young madam ; " let her 
ladyship know how happy her visit will make us ; but, in the 
mean time, Mr. Papillot, give your horse to one of the servants, 
and come in and have a glass of something after your ride." "I 
am afraid," answered he (pulling out his right-hand watch, for, 
would you believe it, sir ? the fellow had one in each fob), " I 
shall hardly have time to meet my lady at the place she appointed 
me." On a second invitation, however, he dismounted and went 
into the house, le^aving his horse to the care of the servants; but 
the servants, as my daughter very well knew, were all in the fields 
at work ; so I, who have a liking for a good horse, and cannot 
bear to see him neglected, had the honor of putting Mr. Papillot's 
in the stable myself. 

After about an hour's stay, for the gentleman seemed to forget 
his hurry within doors, Mr. Papillot departed. My daughters — I 
mean the two polite ones — observed how handsome he was, and 
added another observation, that it was only to particular friends 
my lady sent messages by him, who was her own body-servant, 
and not accustomed to such offices. My wife seemed highly 
pleased with this last remark : I was about to be angry, but on 
such occasions it is not my way to say much ; I generally shrug 
up my shoulders in silence : yet, as I said before, Mr. Mirror, I 
would not have you think me henpecked. 

By this time every domestic about my house, male and female, 
were called from their several employments to assist in the 
preparations for her ladyship's reception. It would tire you to 
enumerate the various shifts that were made by purchasing, 
borrowing, &c., to furnish out a dinner suitable to the occasion. 
My little gray pony, which I keep for sending to market, broke 
his wind in the cause, and has never been good for any thing 
since. 

Nor was there less ado in making ourselves and our attendants 
fit to appear before such company. The female part of tlie 
family managed the matter pretty easily ; women, I observe, 
having a natural talent that way. My wife took upon herself 
the charge of apparelling me for the occasion. A laced suit, 



MACKENZIE. 173 

which I had worn at my marriage, was got up for the purpose ; 
but the breeches burst a seam at the very first attempt of pulling 
them on, and the sleeves of the coat were also impracticable ; so 
she was forced to content herself Avith clothing me in my Sun- 
day's coat and breeches, with the laced waistcoat of the above- 
mentioned suit, slit in the back, to set them off a little. My 
gardener, who has been accustomed, indeed, to serve in many 
capacities, had his head cropped, curled, and powdered, for the 
part of butler ; one of the best-looking plough-boys had a yellow 
cape clapped to his Sunday's coat, to make him pass for a servant 
in livery ; and we borrowed my son-in-law the parson's man for 
a third hand. 

All this was accomplished, though not w^ithout some tumult 
and disorder, before the arrival of the great lady. She gave us, 
indeed, more time for the purpose than we looked for, as it was 
near six o'clock before she arrived. But this was productive of 
a misfortune on the other hand : the dinner my poor wife had 
bustled, sweated, and scolded for, was so over-boiled, over- 
stewed, and over-roasted, that it needed the appetite of so late an 
hour to make it go well doAvn even with me, who am not very 
nice in these matters ; luckily, her ladyship, as I am told, never 
eats much, for fear of spoiling her shape, now that small wwsts 
have come into fashion again. 

The dinner, however, though spoiled in the cooking, was not 
thrown away, as her ladyship's train made shift to eat the 
greatest part of it. When I say her train, I do not mean her ser- 
vants only, of which there were half a dozen in livery, besides 
the illustrious Mr. Papillot and her ladyship's maid, — gentle- 
woman, I should say, — who had a table to themselves. Her 
parlor attendants were equally numerous, consisting of two ladies 
and six gentlemen, who had accompanied her ladyship in this 
excursion, and did us the honor of coming to eat and drink with 
us, and bringing their servants to *do the same, though we had 
never seen or heard of them before. 

During the progress of this entertainment there were several 
little embarrassments w^iich might appear ridiculous in descrip- 
tion, but were matters of serious distress to us. Soup was spilled, 
dishes overturned, and glasses broken, by the awkwardness of 
our attendants ; and things were not a bit mended by my wife's 
solicitude (who, to do her justice, had all her eyes about her) to 
correct them. 

From the time of her ladyship's arrival, it was impossible that 
dinner could be over before it was dark ; this, with the considera- 
tion of the bad road she had to pass through in her way to the 
next house she meant to visit, produced an invitation from my 
wife and daughters to pass the night with us, which, after a few 
words of apology for the trouble she gave us, and a few more of 

15 



174 MACKENZIE. 

the honor we received, was agreed to. This gave rise to a new 
scene of preparation, rather more difficult than that before din- 
ner. My wife and I were dislodged from our own apartment to 
make room for our noble guests. Our four daughters were 
crammed in by us, and slept on the floor, that their rooms might 
be left for the two ladies and four of the gentlemen who were en- 
titled to the greatest degree of respect ; for the remaining two we 
found beds at my son-in-law's. My two eldest daughters had, 
indeed, little time to sleep, being closeted the greatest part erf the 
night with their right honorable visitor. My offices were turned 
topsy-turvy for the accommodation of the servants of my guests, 
and my own horses turned into the fields that theirs might occupy 
my stable. 

All these are hardships of their kind, Mr. Mirror, which the 
honor that accompanies them seems to me not fully to compen- 
sate ; but these are slight grievances in comparison with what I 
have to complain of as the effects of this visit. The malady of 
my two eldest daughters is not only returned with increased vio- 
lence upon them, but has now communicated itself to every other 
branch of my family. My wife, formerly a decent, discreet 
woman, who liked her own way, indeed, but was a notable 
manager, now talks of this and that piece of expense as neces- 
sary to the rank of a gentlewoman, and has lately dropped some 
broad hints that a winter in town is necessary to the accomplish- 
ment of one. My two younger daughters have got the heads that 
formerly belonged to their elder sisters, to each of whom, unfor- 
tunately, the great lady presented a set of feathers, for which 
new heads were essentially requisite. 

This affectation of fashion has gone a step lower in my house- 
hold. My gardener has tied his hair behind, and stolen my flour 
to powder it, ever since he saw Mr. Papillot ; and yesterday he 
gave me warning that he should leave me next term if I did not 
take him into the house, and provide another hand for the work 
in the garden. I found a great hoyden, who washes my daugh- 
ters' linen, sitting, the other afternoon, dressed in one of their 
cast fly-caps, entertaining this same oaf of a gardener and the 
wives of two of my farm-servants, with tea, forsooth ; and when 
I quarrelled with her for it, she replied that Mrs. Dimity, my 

Lady 's gentlewoman, told her all the maids at had tea 

and saw company of an afternoon. 

But I am resolved on a reformation, Mr. Mirror, and shall let 
my wife and daughters know that I will be master of my own 
house and my own expenses, and will neither be made a fool or a 
beggar, though it were after the manner of the greatest lord in 
Christendom. Yet I confess I am always for trying gentle 
methods first. I beg, therefore, that you will insert this in your 
next paper, and add to it some exhortations of your own, to pre- 



SCOTT, 



175 



vail on them, if possible, to give over a behavior which, I think, 
under favor, is rather improper even in great folks, but is cer- 
tainly ruinous to little ones. 

I am, &c. John Homespun. 



WALTER SCOTT, 1771-1832. 

But thou, -with powers that mock the aid of praise, 
Shouldst leave to humbler bards ignoble laj'S : 
Thy country's voice, the voice of all the nine, 
Demand a hallow'd harp, — that harp is thine. 
Scotland! still proudly claim thy native bard, 
And be thy praise his first, his best reward ! 
Yet not with thee alone his name should live, 
But own the vast renown a world can give ; 
Be known, perchance, when Albion is no more. 
And tell the tale of what she was before ; 
To future times her faded fame recall, 
And save her glory, though his country fall. — BmON. 

This illustrious author, the son of "Walter Scott, a " Writer to the Signet"^ 
in the Scottish capital, was born in Edinburgh, on the 15th of August, 1771. 
He received the chief portion of his school education at the High School of 
Edinburgh, then under the care of the celebrated Dr. Adam; but during the 
four years that he remained there he does not appear to have displayed any 
remarkable abilities, except for tale-telling, in which he excelled. "The 
chief employment of my holidays" (says he, in the general introduction to his 
novels) " was to escape with a chosen friend, who had the same taste with my- 
self, and alternately to recite to each other such wild adventures as we were 
able to devise." In October, 17S3, he entered the University of Edinburgh, and 
left it in a year or two, without having added much to his stock of classical 
knowledge. At the age of fifteen, the breaking of a blood-vessel brought on an 
illness which, to use his own words, "threw him back on the kingdom of 
fiction, as if by a species of fatality." Being for some time forbidden to speak 
or move, he did nothing but- read from morning till night, and, by a perusal 
of old romances, old plays, and epic poetry, was unconsciously amassing mate- 
rials for his future writings. 

In his sixteenth year he commenced studying for the bar, and became an 
apprentice to his father. In 1792 he became an advocate; but he had no taste 
for the law; and, as his father was in affluent circumstances, he resolved to 
devote himself to literary pursuits. In 1797 he married Miss Margaret Car- 
penter, the daughter of a French refugee, and soon after took a house at Lass- 
wade,2 on the banks of the North Esk. In 1802 appeared his first publication 
of any note. The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, in two volumes, which 
displayed much curious and abstruse learning, and gained the author con- 
siderable reputation as an historical and traditionary poet. In 1803 he came 
to the final resolution of quitting his profession, observing, "there was no 



1 The signet is one of the king's seals used 
in sealing his private letters and all grants 
signed under his hand. It is always in the 
custody of the Secretaries of State. A " Writer 



I 



to the Signet" is, therefore, one who holds an 
office in the department of State. 

2 So called from a lass who, of old, waded 
the stream, carrying passengers on her back. 



176 



SCOTT. 



great love between us at the beginning, and it pleased Heaven to decrease it 
on farther acquaintance." In 1805 he published The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 
which was composed at the rate of a canto per week, and for which he 
obtained six hundred pounds. In 1808 appeared his Marmion, which he sold 
for one thousand pounds, the extraordinary success of which induced him, he 
says, for the first and last time of his life, to feel something approaching to 
vanity. This was succeeded by an edition of Dryden s w.trks, in eighteen 
volumes, with notes historical and explanatory, and a life of tiie author. In 
1810 he composed his Lady of the Lake, which had extraordinary success, and 
which has been characterized by some as the finest specimen of his poetical 
genius. Within four years after this appeared his Vision of Don Roderick, . 
Rokeby, and The Lord of the Isles. These, however, did not meet with the 
success which attended his former poems. 

Determined to continue his literary career, he resolved to try his powers in 
the composition of fictitious prose writings, and in 1814 appeared Waverley, or 
'Tis Sixty Tears Since, a tale of the rebellion of 1745. Though the name of 
its distinguished author was not attached to it, it soon rose to great popu- 
larity. He had now fairly entered upon the field in which he earned tri- 
umphs even more splendid than those he had gained in the domain of 
poetry. Waverley was followed within a few years by that brilliant series of prose 
fictions which made the "Great Unknown," as he was called, the wonder of tlie 
age. From 1815 to 1819 appeared, successively, Guy Mannering, The Anti- 
quary, and the first series of the Tales of My Landlord, containing the Black 
Dwarf and Old Mortality ; Rob Roy, and the second series of the Tales of My 
Landlord, containing The Heart of Mid- Lothian ; and the third series, con- 
taining Tlie Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Moyitrose. In 1821^ ap- 
peared Kenilworth, which was succeeded, successively, by The Pirate, The 
Fortunes of Nigel, Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, Tales of the Cru- 
saders, &c. 

The great success of all these works enabled Scott to carry out the long- 
cherished object of his wishes, — to possess a large baronial estate. In 1811 he 
purchased one hundred acres of land on the banks of the Tweed, near Mel- 
rose, for four thousand pounds, "and the interesting and now immortal name 
of Abbotsford was substituted for the very ordinary one of Cartley Hole." 
Other purchases of land followed to a great extent, which, together with the 
noble mansion, cost more than fifty thousand pounds. In this princely resi- 
dence the poet received for years, and entertained with bounteous hospitality, 
innumerable visitors, — princes, peers, and poets, — men of all ranks and 
grades. In the mean time, he entered into partnership with his old school- 
fellow, James Ballantyne, then rising into extensive business as a printer in 
Edinburgh. The copartnership was kept a secret, and, to all appearance, the 
house of Ballantyne <& Co. was doing a very prosperous business. Little did 
he dream what sad reverses awaited him, — how soon his all was to be swept 
away, — 

" Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, 
That, hush'd in gi'im repose, expects his evening prey." 



\ 



1 In 1820, say his biographers, "the honor 
of the baronetcy was conferred upon him by 
George IV.," — as if he did not honor the " ba- 
ronetcy" far more than the "baronetcy" ho- 
nored him. Such men as John Milton, Isaac 



Newton, William Shakspejire, and Walter 
Scott need no unmeaning titles to make them 
greater. Scott, however, was pleased with it. 
To have a title and a large landed estate was 
his great ambition. 



SCOTT. 



Ill 



In the great commercial distresses of 1825 and 1826, his publishers, Con- 
stable & Co., stopped payment, and the failure of the firm of Ballantyne, for 
a very large sum, followed instantly, and thus these two firms involved Scott 
to the amount of more than one hundred thousand pounds. But these im- 
mense losses did not dishearten him. If he had been imprudent in forming 
such connections, most nobly and courageously did he come forward, and 
insist that he would not be dealt with as an ordinary bankrupt, and j^ledge 
himself that the labor of his future life should be unremittingly devoted to 
the discharge of his debts.^ He did more than fulfil his noble promise; but 
the gigantic toil to which, during years after this, he submitted, was the im- 
mediate cause that shortened his life. His self-sacrifice realized for his creditors 
between January, 1826, and January, 1828, the surprising sum of forty thou- 
sand pounds; and soon after his death the principal of the whole Ballantyne 
debt was paid up by his executors. Language fails to express the honor and 
glory of such an act of moral heroism and severe integrity. It has encircled 
the brow of Sir Walter Scott with greener laurels than all the works of poetry 
and fiction he ever wrote.^ 

In 1826 our author removed from Abbotsford to Edinburgh and entered 
vigorously upon his renewed labors. Woodstock, the first and second series 
of the Chronicles of the Canongate, Anne of Geierstein, the first, second, and third 
series of Tales of My Grandfather, and the Lfe of Napoleon, in nine volumes 
octavo, followed in rapid succession. But these great labors were too much 
for him. In 1830 he had an attack of paralysis; yet he continued to write 
several hours every day. In April, 1831, he suffered a still more severe 
attack, and he was prevailed upon to undertake a foreign tour. He sailed for 
Malta and Naples, and resided at the latter place from December, 1831, to the- 
following April. The next month he set his face towards home, and reached 
London on the 13th of June.s He was conveyed to Abbotsford, the perfect 



1 " It is very hard," was his observation to a 
friend on the occasion, " thus to lose all the 
labors of a lifetime, and be made a poor man 
at last, when I ought to have been otherwise. 
But if God grant me health and strength for a 
few years longer, I have no doubt that I shall 
redeem it all." 

2 '* English literature presents two memorable 
and striking events, which have never been 
paralleled in any other nation. The first is 
Milton, advanced in years, blind, and in mis- 
fortune, entering upon the composition of a 
gi'eat epic that was to determine his future 
fame, and hazard the glory of his country in 
competition with what had been achieved in 
the classic ages of antiquity. The counterpart 
to this noble picture is Walter Scott, at nearly 
the same age, his private affairs in ruin, under- 
taking to liquidate, by intellectual labors 
alone, a debt of one hundred and seventeen 
thousand pounds. Both tasks may be classed 
with the moral sublime of life. Glory, pure 
and unsullied, was the ruling aim and motive 
of Milton; honor and integi'ity formed the in- 
centives to Scott. Neither shrunk from the 
steady prosecution of his gigantic, self-imposed 
labor. But years rolled on, seasons returned 
and passed away, amid public cares and pri- 
vate calamity and the pressure of increasing 
infirmities, ere the seed sown amid clouds and 
storms was white in the field. In six years 



Milton had realized the object of his hopes 
and prayers by the completion of Paradise 
Lost. His task was done; the field of glory 
was gained; he held in his hand his passport 
to immortality. In six years Scott had nearly 
reached the goal of his ambition. He had 
ranged the wide fields of romance, and the 
public had liberally rewarded their illustrious 
favorite. The ultimate prize was within view, 
an»l the world cheered him on, eagerly antici- 
pating his triumph; but the victor sank ex- 
hausted on the course. He had spent his life 
in the struggle. The strong man was bowed 
down, and his living honor, genius, and integ- 
rity were extinguished by delirium and death." 
— Chambers's Cyc. E»g. Lit. 

3 " St. James's Hotel, No. 76 Jermyn Street, 
on the south side, was the last London lodging 
of Sir Walter Scott. Here he lay for a period 
of three weeks after his return from the con- 
tinent, eitlier in absolute stupor or in a waking 
dream. The room he occupied was the second- 
floor back-room ; and the author of this col- 
lection of London memoranda delights in re- 
membering the universal feeling of sympathy 
exhibited by all (and there were many there) 
who stood to see the great novelist and poet 
carried from the hotel to his carriage on the 
afternoon of the 7th of July, 1832. Many 
were eager to see so great a man, but all mere 
curiosity seemed to cease when they saw the 



178 



SCOTT. 



wreck in body and mind of what he once was. " He desired/' says Mr. Lock- 
hart, " to be wheeled through his rooms, and we moved him leisurely for an 
hour or more up and down the hall and the great library. 'I have seen 
much,' he kept saying, 'but nothing like my ain house: give me one turn 
more.' He was gentle as an infant, and allowed himself to be put to bed 
again, the moment we told him that we thought he had enough for one day. 
«- * «- He expressed a wish that I should read to him; and when I asked 
from what book, he said, ' Need you ask ? there is but one.' I chose the four- 
teenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. When near his end, he said, * Lockhart, 
I may have but a minute to speak to you: my dear, be a good man; be vir- 
tuous, be religious; be a good man. Nothing else will give you comfort when 
you come to lie here.' He paused, and I said, * Shall I send for Sophia and 
Anne?' 'No,' said he; 'don't disturb them. Poor souls! I know they were 
up all night, — God bless you all !' With this he sank into a very tranquil 
Bleep. But the contest was soon to be over. About half-past one p.m. on 
the 21st of September, 1832, Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of 
all hi^ children. It was a beautiful day, — so warm that every window was 
wide open, — and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most deli- 
cious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was dis- 
tinctly audible as we knelt around his bed, and his eldest son kissed and 
closed his eyes.''^ 

It now remains to speak of the character of the writings of this most gifted 
genius and prolific author. With respect to his poetry, truth compels us to 
say that, taking it as a whole, we cannot give it the praise bestowed upon it 
by its few ardent admirers. Neither, on the other hand, can we go so far as 
Hazlitt, who sets Scott down as " a mere narrative and descriptive poet, gar- 
rulous of the old time;" nor so far as Leigh Hunt, himself a poet, who says of 
his verse that it is " a little thinking, conveyed in a great many words." 
That there is much in his poetry to please with its beautiful and graphic 
description, much to animate by its lively measure, and here and there a 
passage to instruct and elevate by its fine sentiment, none can deny; but as a 
whole it is destitute of tenderness, of passion, and of philosophic truth; it 
goes not down into the depths of the soul, to call forth its deepest feelings or 
awaken its strongest sympathies. Of its "moral tone," a very partial bio- 
grapher^ remarks, "if it is not high, it must be at least admitted that it is 
uniformly inoffensive."^ 

His prose works have given him a higher rank, and in the character of a 



vacant eye and prostrate figure of the illus- 
trious poet. There was not a covered head, 
and, the writer believes, — from what he could 
see, — hardly a dry eye, upon the occasion." — 
Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, p. 265. 

1 " Fi-om 1826 to his death, a period of six 
years, Scott devoted his whole time to constant 
literary toil, rendered doubly painful towards 
the eiid by the consciousness of decaying 
powers and the shocks of mortal disease. He 
literally wrote himself to death. The noble 
genius, straining every nerve under an over- 
wlielming burden, burst his heart, and fell 
just when the goal of his honorable hopes 
began to rise clearly into view." — Collier. 

2 Encyclopstdia Britannica, xix. 777. 

3 " The secret of the success of Scott's poems 



may be found in the admirable skill with 
which they bring before the reader the actual 
life of those chivalrous days on which we all 
naturally look back with enthusiasm ; in the 
graphic descriptions, in the exciting interest 
of the narrative, and the charm of the lively, 
ever-varying versification. Scott makes no at- 
tempt to move the deeper feelings ; his works 
Avere composed with great rapidity, and, con- 
sequently, owe none of their impressiveness to 
an immaculate style; and he has no preten- 
sions to profound meditative sagacity ; but the 
reader, after perusing a few stanzas, forgets all 
imperfections, and cannot stay to criticize a 
poet whose fire and vigor may, in some pass- 
ages, stand comparison even with the battle- 
scenes of Homer."— Demaus. 



SCOTT. 179 

novelist his name will go down to posterity as the inventor of a new class of 
fictitious writings. When Waverley made its appearance anonymously, the 
world immediately felt that a new order of things in the domain of romance 
was at hand; that a fascinating master-spirit had entered the wide field to 
glean its wealth : and, as novel after novel succeeded in rapid succession, ad- 
miration was followed hy astonishment at the fertility of a genius as rich as it 
seemed to be exhaustless. The beauty and richness of concejition, the vigor 
of execution, the nice discrimination of character, the bold coloring of historic 
scenes, and the boundless acquired knowledge exhibited in his novels, — all 
these placed Scott at once at the head of fictitious writers, and the reading 
world devoured with avidity whatever came from his pen. 

But, great as are the literary merits of Scott's novels, the question may j)ro- 
perly be asked, What, on the whole, is the influence of his fictitious writings 
upon the reader ? Must not such works as consist partly of historic truths and 
partly of the creations of the imagination, necessarily give a very distorted 
view of facts ? Is a man of high Tory principles likely to give correct views 
of the House of Stuart and its adherents, or of their enemies the Puritans ? 
Could we reasonably expect any correct appreciation of the character of a class 
of men as devotedly religious as any that ever lived — the Scotch Covenanters 
— from one who evidently had no deep religious experience himself? Can a 
good influence be exerted upon the mind by novels which are interspersed with 
profane expressions, or which paint an unprincipled hero in pleasing colors ? 
Can we expect a man of high aristocratic feeling to sympathize with his 
brother man in humble life, to understand his character, to feel for his posi- 
tion, or to appreciate his homely trials and his homely joys ? It is doubtless 
from reflections which a question like the last would suggest, that the same 
partial though discriminating biographer before quoted remarks, "In his 
views of human society, the only thing, perhaps, which can at all jar on the 
feelings of any, is that tendency to aristocratic hauteur which, not indeed 
shrinking from contact with the lower ordei's, and willingly recognizing and 
esteeming many of their virtues, yet considers them strictly as the dependants 
of higher men, and is silent on every other relation they can be supjwsed to 
hold. This feeling is palpable both in his poetry and his romances." 

But, notwithstanding all the exceptions that may be taken to Scott's writings, 
though we cannot award to his poetry the highest meed of praise, and though 
there is much in his fictitious writings that we could wish otherwise, yet the 
great truth still remains, that the former excels, in vigorous and animated de- 
scription, most of the poetry of modern times; and that, in variety and true 
painting of character, he shares with Dickens the honor of being the Shak- 
speare of English prose of the nineteenth century, *. 

DEATH OF LORD MARMION. 

At length the freshening western blast 
Aside the shroud of* battle cast ; 
And, first, the ridge of mingled spears 
Above the brightening cloud appears ; 
And in the smoke the pennons flew, 
As in the storm the white sea-mew. 
Then mark'd they, dashing broad and far, 
The broken billows of the war, 



180 SCOTT. 



And pliimed crest of chieftains brave, 
Floating like foam upon the wave, 

But nought distinct they see : 
Wide raged the battle on the plain ; 
Spears shook, and falchions flash'd amain ; 
Fell England's arrow-flight like rain ; 
Crests rose, and stoop' d, and rose again. 

Wild and disorderly. 
Amid the scene of tumult, high 
They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly : 
And stainless Tunstall's banner white, 
And Edmund Howard's lion bright, 
Still bear them bravely in the fight ; 

Although against them come 
Of gallant Gordons many a one. 
And many a stubborn highlandman. 
And many a rugged border clan, 

With Huntley and with Home. 

Far on the left, unseen the while, 
Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle ; 
Though there the western mountaineer 
Rush'd with bare bosom on the spear. 
And flung the feeble targe aside. 
And with both hands the broadsword plied : 
'Twas vain : — But fortune, on the right. 
With fickle smile, cheer'd Scotland's fight. 
Then fell that spotless banner white, — 

The Howard's lion fell ; 
Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew 
With wavering flight, while fiercer grew 

Around the battle-yell. 
The border slogan rent the sky ! 
A Home ! a Gordon I was the cry ; 

Loud were the clanging blows ; 
Advanced, — forced back, — now low, now high, 

The pennon sunk and rose ; 
As bends the bark's mast in the gale. 
When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail. 

It waver'd 'mid the foes. 
No longer Blount the sight could bear : — 
" By heaven, and all its saints, I swear, 

I will not see it lost 1 
Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare 
May bid your beads and patter prayer, — 

I gallop to the host." 
And to the fraj'- he rode amain. 
Follow' d by all the archer train. 
The fiery youth, with desperate charge, 
Made, for a space, an opening large ; 

The rescued banner rose ; 
But darkly closed the war around ; 
Like pine-tree, rooted from the ground. 

It sunk among the foes. 
Then Eustace mounted too ; — yet stay'd, 
As loath to leave the helpless maid. 



SCOTT. 131 



When, fast as shaft can fly, 
Bloodshot his eyes, his nostrils spread, 
The loose rein dangling from his head, 
Housing and saddle bloody red, 

Lord Marmion's steed rush'd by ; 
And Eustace, maddening at the sight, 
A look and sign to Clara cast. 
To mark he would return in haste, 
Then plunged into the fight. 

Ask me not what the maiden feels, 
Left in that dreadful hour alone : 

Perchance her reason stoops, or reels ; 
Perchance a courage not her own 
Braces her mind to desperate tone. 

The scatter'd van of England wheels ; — 
She only said, as loud in air 
The tumult roar'd, " Is Wilton there ?" 
They fly, or, madden'd by despair, 
Fight but to die,—'' Is Wilton there ?" 

With that, straight up the hill there rode 
Two horsemen drench'd with gore, 

And in their arms a helpless load, 
A wounded knight, they bore. 

His hand still strain'd the broken brand ; 

His arms were smear' d with blood and sand; 

Dragg'd from among the horses' feet. 

With dinted shield, and helmet beat, 

The falcon crest and plumage gone, 

Can that be haughty Marmion ? 

Young Blount his armor did unlace, 

And, gazing on his ghastly face. 
Said, " By Saint George, he's gone ! 

That spear-wound has our master sped ; 

And see the deep cut on his head ! 
Good-night to Marmion !" 

" Unnurtured Blount ! thy brawling cease : 

He opes his eyes," said Eustace ; " peace !" 

■5^ * * * -Jfr * 

O woman ! in our hours of ease. 

Uncertain, coy, and hard to please. 

And variable as the shade 

By the light quivering aspen made, — 

When pain and anguish wring the brow, 

A ministering angel thou ! 

Scarce were the piteous accents said. 

When, Avith the baron's casque, the maid 

To the nigh streamlet ran : 
Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears, 
The plaintive voice alone she hears. 

Sees but the dying man. , 

She stoop'd her by 'the runnel's side. 

But in abhorrence backward drew ; 
For, oozing from the mountain's side, 
Where raged the war, a dark-red tide 

Was curdling in the streamlet blue. 
16 



182 SCOTT. 

Where shall she turn ? — behold her mark 

A little fountain-cell, 
Where water, clear as diamond-spark, 

In a stone basin fell. 
Above some half-worn letters say, 
Drink, weary pilgrim, drink, and pray 
For the kind soul of Sibyl Grey, 

Who built this a^oss and well. 
She fill'd the helm, and back she hied. 
And with surprise and joy espied 

A monk supporting Marmion's head ; 
A pious man, whom duty brought 
To dubious ^erge of battle fought, 

To shrive the dying, bless the dead. 



With fruitless labor, Clara bound. 

And strove to stanch, the gushing wound : 

The monk, with unavailing cares. 

Exhausted all the church's prayers. 

Ever, he said, that, close and near, 

A lady's voice Avas on his ear. 

And that the priest he could not hear, 

For that she ever sung, 
"In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, 
Where mingles war\s rattle with groans of the dying: 

So the notes rung : — 
" Avoid thee, fiend ! — with cruel hand, 
Shake not the dying sinner's sand. 
Oh, look, my son, upon yon sign 
Of the Redeemer's grace divine ; 

Oh, think on fjiith and bliss ! 
By many a death-bed I have been, 
And many a sinner's parting seen, 

But never aught like this." 

The war, that for a space did fail, 
Now trel)ly thundering swell'd the gale. 

And — Stanley ! was the cry ; 
A light on Marmion's visage spread, 

And fired his glazing eye : 
With dying hand, above his head 
He shook the fragment of his blade. 

And shouted, " Victory ! — 
Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on !" — 
Were the last words of Marmion. 

LOVE OF COUNTRY— SCOTLAND. 

Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
» This is my own, my native land ! 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd. 
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd 

From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
If such there breathe, go mark him well : 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 



t 



SCOTT. 183 

High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 
Desi)ite those titles, power, and pelt^ 
The wretch,- concentred all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, douhly dying, shall go down 
To tlie vile dust, from Avhence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung. 

O Caledonia ! stern and wild, 
!Meet nurse for a poetic child ! 
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood, 
Ijand of my sires ! Avhat mortal hand 
Can e'er untie the filial band 
That knits me to thy rugged strand ? 
Still as I view each well-known scene. 
Think what is now, and what hath been, 
Seems as to me, of all bereft. 
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left ; 
And thus I love them better still, 
Even in extremity of ill. 

3farmion. 



REBECCA'S HYMN. 

It was in the twilight of the day when her trial, if it could he 
called such, had taken j^lace, that a low knock was heard at the 
door of Rebecca's prison-chamber. It disturbed not the inmate, 
who was then engaged in the evening prayer recommended by her 
religion, and which concluded with a hymn, which we have ven- 
tured thus to translate into English : — 

When Israel, of the Lord beloved. 

Out of the land of bondage came. 
Her fathers' God before her moved, 

An awful guide, in smoke and flame. 
By day, along the astonish'd lands 

The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 
By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands 

Eeturn'd the fiery column's glow. 

There rose the choral hymn of praise. 

And trump and timbrel answer'd keen. 
And Zion's daughters pourd their lays, 

With priests' and warriors' voice between. 
No portents now our foes amaze. 

Forsaken Israel wanders lone : 
Our fathers would not know thy ways, 

And thou hast left them to their own. 

But present still, though now unseen ! • 

When brightly shines the prosperous day, 

Be thoughts of thee, a cloudy screen 
To temper the deceitful ray. 



184 SCOTT. 



And, oh, when stoops on Judah's path 
In shade and storm the frequent night, 

Be THOU, long-suflering, slow to wrath, 
A burning and a shining light ! 

Our harps we left by Babel's streams, 

The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn ; 
No censer round our altar beams, 

And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn. 
But THOU hast said. The blood of goat, 

The flesh of rams I will not prize ; 
A contrite heart, an humble thought, 

Are mine accepted sacrifice. 

Ivanhoe. 



PATERNAL AFFECTION. 

Some feelings are to mortals given, 
With less of earth in them than heaven ; 
And if there be a human tear 
From passion's dross refined and clear, 
A tear so limj^id and so meek. 
It would not stain an angel's cheek, 
'Tis that which pious fathers shed 
Upon a duteous daughter's head ! 

Lady of the Lake. 

ONE HOUR WITH THEE. 

An hour with thee ! When earliest day 
Dapples with gold the eastern gray, 
Oh, what can irame my mind to bear 
The toil and turmoil, eark and care? 
New griefs, which coming hours unfold. 
And sad remembrance of the old? 

One hour with thee ! 

One hour with thee ! When burning June 
Waves his red flag at pitch of noon ; 
What shall repay the faithful swain 
His labor on the sultry plain, 
And more than cave or sheltering bough 
Cool feverish blood and throbbing brow ? 
One hour Avith thee ! 

One hour with thee! When sun is set, 
Oh, what can teach me to forget 
The thankless labors of the day ; 
The hopes, the wishes, flung away ; 
The increasing wants and lessening gains, 
The master's pride, who scorns my pains ? 
One hour with thee ! 

Woodstock. 



SCOTT. 185 



THE NECESSITY AND DIGNITY OF LABOR. 

I rely upon it that you are now working hard in the classical 
miixc, getting out the rubbish as fast as you can, and preparing 
yourself to collect the ore. I cannot too much impress upon 
your mind that labor is the condition which God has imposed on 
us in every station of life, — there is nothing worth having that 
can be had without it, from the bread which the peasant wins 
with the sweat of his brow, to the sports by which the rich man 
must get rid of his ennui. The only difference betwixt them is, 
that the poor man labors to get a dinner to his appetite, the rich 
man to get an appetite to his dinner. As for knowledge, it can 
no more be planted in the human mind without labor than a field 
of wheat can be produced without the previous use of the plough. 
There is indeed this great difference, that chance or circumstances 
may so cause it that another shall reap w^hat the farmer sows ; 
but no man can be deprived, whether by accident or misfortune, 
of the fruits of his own studies ; and the liberal and extended 
acquisitions of knowledge which he makes are all for his own use. 
Labor, my dear boy, therefore, and improve the time. In youth 
our steps are light, and our minds are ductile, and knowledge is 
easily laid up. But if we neglect our spring, our summer will 
be useless and contemptible, our harvest will be chaff, and the 
winter of our old age unrespected and desolate. — From a Letter 
to his Son. 

ED (/CATION OF THE HEART. 

I fear you have some very young ideas in your head. Are you 
not too apt to measure things by some reference to literature, — to 
disbelieve that anybody can be worth much care who has no 
knowledge of that sort of thing, or taste for it ? God help us ! 
what a poor world this would be if that were the true doctrine ! 
I have read books enough, and observed and conversed with 
enough of eminent and splendidly cultivated minds, too, in my 
time ; but I assure you I have heard higher sentiments from the 
lips of the poor, uneducated men and women, when exerting the 
spirit of severe yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, 
or speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot 
of friends and neighbors, than I ever yet met with out of the 
pages of the Bible. We shall never learn to feel and respect 
our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to 
consider every thing as moonshine compared with the education 
of the heart. — From his Life. 

16* 



186 SCOTT. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH QUEEN 
ELIZABETH. 

They were soon launched on the princely bosom of the broad 
Thames, upon which the sun now shone forth in all its splendor. 

" There are two things scarce matched in the universe," said 
Walter to Blount, — " the sun in heaven, and the Thames on the 
earth." 

"The one will light us to Greenwich well enough," said 
Blount, " and the other would take us there a little faster if it 
were ebb tide." 

" And this is all thou think'st, all thou carest, all thou deem'st 
the use of the kip.g of elements and the king of rivers, — to guide 
three such poor caitiifs as thyself and me and Tracy upon an idle 
journey of courtly ceremony!" 

" It is no errand of my seeking, faith !" replied Blount ; " and 
I could excuse both the sun and the Thames the trouble of 
carrying me where I have no great mind to go, and where I ex- 
pect but dog's wages for my trouble — And by my honor," he 
added, looking out from the head of the boat, " it seems to me as 
if our message were a sort of labor in vain ; for, see, the queen's 
barge lies at the stairs, as if her majesty were about to take 
water." 

It was even so. The royal barge, manned with the queen's 
watermen richly attired in the regal liveries, and having the ban- 
ner of England displayed, did indeed lie at tlie great stairs which 
ascended from the river, and along with it two or three other 
boats for transporting such part of her retiuue as were not in 
immediate attendance on the royal person. The yeomen of the 
guard — the tallest and most handsome men Avhom England could 
produce — guarded with their halberds the passage from the 
palace-gate to the river side, and all seemed in readiness for the 
queen's coming forth, although the day was yet so early. 

" By my faith, this bodes us no good !" said Blount ; " it must 
be some perilous cause puts her grace in motion thus untimously. 
By my counsel, we were best put back again, and tell the earl 
what we have seen." 

" Tell the earl w^hat we have seen !" said Walter ; " why, what 
have we seen but a boat, and men with scarlet jerkins and hal- 
berds in their hands? Let us do his errand, and tell him what 
the queen says in reply." 

So saying, he caused the boat to be pulled towards a landing- 
place at some distance from the principal one, which it would not 
at that moment have been thought respectful to approach, and 
jumped on shore, followed, though with reluctance, by his cau- 
tious and timid companions. As they approached the gate of the 
palace, one of the sergeant porters told them they could not at 



SCOTT. 187 

present enter, as her majesty was in the act of coming forth. The 
gentlemen used the name of the Earl of Sussex ; but it proved no 
charm to subdue the officer, who alleged, in reply, that it was as 
much as his post was worth to disobey in the least tittle the com- 
mands which he had received. 

" Nay, I told you as much before," said Blount. " Do, I pray 
you, my dear Walter, let us take boat and return." 

" Not till I see the queen come forth," returned the youth, 
composedly. 

" Thou art mad, stark mad, by the mass !" answered Blount. 

" And thou," said Walter, " art turned coward of the sudden. 
I have seen thee face half a score of shag-headed Irish kernes to 
thy own share of them, and now thou wouldst blink and go back 
to shun the frown of a fair lady !" 

At this moment the gates opened, and ushers began to issue 
forth in array, preceded and flanked by the band of gentlemen 
pensioners. After this, amid a crowd of lords and ladies, yet so 
disposed around her that she could see and be seen on all sides, 
came Elizabeth herself, then in the prime of womanhood and in 
the full glow of what in a sovereign was called beauty, and who 
would in the lowest rank of life have been truly judged a noble 
figure, joined to a striking and commanding physiognomy. She 
leant on the arm of Lord Hunsdon, whose relation to her by her 
mother's side often procured him such distinguished marks of 
Elizabeth's intimacy. 

The young cavalier we have so often mentioned had probably 
never yet approached so near the person of his sovereign ; and 
he pressed forward as far as the line of warders permitted, in 
order to avail himself of the present opportunity. His com- 
panion, on the contrary, kept pulling him backward, till Walter 
shook him off impatiently and let his rich cloak drop carelessly 
from one shoulder, — a natural action, which served, however, to 
display to the best advantage his well-proportioned person. Un- 
bonneting at the same time, he fixed his eager gaze on the 
queen's approach with a mixture of respectful curiosity and 
modest yet ardent admiration, which suited so well with his fine 
features, that the warders, struck with his rich attire and noble 
countenance, suffered him to approach the ground over which 
the queen was to pass, somewhat closer than was permitted to 
ordinary spectators. Thus the adventurous youth stood full in 
Elizabeth's eye, — an eye never indifferent to the admiration 
which she deservedly excited among her subjects, or to the fair 
proportions of external form which chanced to distinguish any 
of her courtiers. Accordingly, she fixed her keen glance on the 
youth, as she approached the place where he stood, with a look 
in which surprise at his boldness seemed to be unmingled with re- 
sentment, while a trifling accident happened which attracted her 



188 SCOTT. 

attention towards him yet more strongly. The night had been 
rainy, and just where the young gentleman stood a small quantity 
of mud interrupted the queen's passage. As she hesitated to pass 
on, the gallant, throwing his cloak from his shoulders, laid it on 
the miry spot, so as to insure her stepping over it dry-shod. 
Elizabeth looked at the young man, who accompanied this act 
of devoted courtesy Avith a profound reverence and a blush that 
overspread his whole countenance. The queen was confused, 
and blushed in her turn, nodded her head, hastily passed on, 
and embarked in her barge without saying a word. 

"Come along, sir coxcomb," said Blount; "your gay cloak 
will need the brush to-day, I wot. Nay, if you had meant to 
make a footcloth of your mantle, better have kept Tracy's old 
drab-de-bure, which despises all colors." 

"This cloak," said the youth, taking it up and folding it, 
" shall never be brushed while in my possession." 

"And that will not be long; if you learn not a little more 
economy, we shall h^J^e you in cuerpo soon, as the Spaniard says." 

Their discourse was here interrupted by one of the band of pen- 
sioners. 

" I was sent," said he, after looking at them attentively, " to a 
gentleman who hath no cloak, or a muddy one. You, sir, 1 think," 
addressing the young cavalier, " are the man ; you will please to 
follow me." 

" He is in attendance on me," said Blount ; " on me, the noble 
Earl of Sussex's master of horse." 

" I have nothing to say to that," answered the messenger ; " my 
orders are directly from her majesty, and concern this gentleman 
only." 

So saying, he walked away, followed by Walter, leaving the 
others behind, — Blount's eyes almost starting from his head 
with the excess of his astonishment. At length he gave vent to 
it in an exclamation, — "Who the good jere would have thought 
this?" — and, shaking his head with a mysterious air, he walked 
to his own boat, embarked, and returned to Deptford. 

The young cavalier was, in the mean while, guided to the 
water-side by the pensioner, who showed him considerable respect, 
— a circumstance which, to persons in his situation, may be con- 
sidered as an augury of no small consequence. He ushered him 
into one of the wherries which lay ready to attend the queen's 
barge, which was already proceeding up the river with the ad- 
vantage of that flood-tide of which, in the course of their descent, 
Blount had complained to his associates. 

The two rowers used their oars with such expedition, at the 
signal of the gentleman pensioner, that they very soon brought 
their little skiff under the stern of the queen's boat, where she 
sat beneath an awning, attended by two or three ladies and the 



SCOTT. 189 

nobles of her household. She looked more than once at the 
wherry in which the young adventurer was seated, spoke to those 
around her, and seemed to laugh. At length one of the attend- 
ants, by the queen's order apparently, made a sign for the wherry 
to come alongside, and the young man was desired to step from 
his own skiff into the queen's barge, which he performed with 
graceful agility at the forepart of the boat, and was brought aft 
to the queen's presence, — the wherry at the same time dropping 
into the rear. The youth underwent the gaze of majesty not the 
less gracefully that his self-possession was mingled with embar- 
rassment. The mudded cloak still hung upon his arm, and 
formed the natural topic with which the queen introduced the 
conversation. 

" You have this day spoiled a gay mantle in our behalf, young 
man. We thank you for your service, though the manner of 
offering it w^as unusual, and something bold." 

" In a sovereign's need," answered the youth, " it is each liege- 
man's duty to be bold." 

" That was well said, my lord !" said the queen, turning to a 
grave person who sat by her, and answered with a grave inclina- 
tion of the head, and something of a mumbled assent. "Well, 
young man, your gallantry shall not go unrewarded. Go to the 
wardrobe-keeper, and he shall have orders to supply the suit 
which you have cast away in our service. Thou shalt have a 
suit, and that of the newest cut, I promise thee, on the word of a 
princess." 

" May it please your grace," said Walter, hesitating, " it is not 
for so humble a servant of your majesty to measure out your 
bounties ; but if it became me to choose" 

" Thou wouldst have gold, I warrant me," said the queen, in- 
terrupting him ; " fie, young man ! I take shame to say that, in 
our capital, such and so various are the means of thriftless folly, 
to give gold to youth is giving fuel to fire, and furnishing them 
with the means of self-destruction. If I live and reign, these 
means of unchristian excess shall be abridged. Yet thou mayst 

be poor," she added, " or thy parents may be It shall be 

gold, if thou wilt ; but thou shalt answer to me for the use on't." 

Walter waited patiently until the queen had done, and then 
modestly assured her that gold was still less in his wish than the 
raiment her majesty had before offered. 

" How, boy !" said the queen ; " neither gold nor garment ? 
What is it thou wouldst have of me, then ?" 

" Only permission, madam, — if it is not asking too high an 
honor, — permission to wear the cloak which did you this trifling 
service." 

" Permission to wear thine own cloak, thou silly boy !" said the 
queen. 



190 SCOTT. 

"It is no longer mine," said Walter ; "when your majesty's 
foot touched it, it became a fit mantle for a prince, but far too 
rich a one for its former owner." 

The queen again blushed, and endeavored to cover, by laugh- 
ing, a slight degree of not unpleasing surprise and confusion. — 
Kenilworth. 

THE YOUNG FISHEEJIAN'S FUNERAL. 

The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, and soon 
arrived before the half-dozen cottages at Mussel-Crag. They now 
had, in addition to their usual squalid and uncomfortable appear- 
ance, the melancholy attributes of the house of mourning. The 
boats were all drawn up on the beach ; and, though the day was 
fine and the season favorable, the chant which is used by the 
fishers when at sea was silent, as well as the prattle of the chil- 
dren, and the shrill song of the mother as she sits mending her 
nets by the door. A few of the neighbors, some in their antique 
and well-saved suits of black, others in their ordinary clothes, but 
all bearing an expression of mournful sympathy with distress so 
sudden and unexpected, stood gathered around the door of 
Mucklebackit's cottage, waiting " till the body was lifted." As 
the Laird of Monkbarns approached, they made way for him to 
enter, doffing their hats and bonnets, as he passed, with an air of 
melancholy courtesy, and he returned their salutes in the same 
manner. 

In the inside of the cottage was a scene which our Wilkie alone 
could have painted w^ith that exquisite feeling of nature which 
characterizes his enchanting productions. The body was laid in 
its coffin within the w^ooden bedstead which the young fisher had 
occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the father, whose 
rugged, weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his grizzled hair, 
had faced many a stormy night and night-like day. He was 
apparently revolving his loss in his mind with that strong feeling 
of painful grief peculiar to harsh and rough characters, which 
almost breaks forth into hatred against the world and all that 
remain in it after the beloved object is withdrawn. The old man 
had made the most desperate efforts to save his son, and had been 
withheld only by main force from renewing them at a moment 
w^hen, without the possibility of assisting the sufferer, he must 
himself have j^erished. All this apparently was boiling in his 
recollection. His glance was directed sidelong towards the coffin 
as to an object on which he could not steadfastly look, and yet 
from which he could not withdraw his eyes. His answers to the 
necessary questions which were occasionally put to him were 
brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His family had not yet dared to 
address to him a word, either of sympathy or consolation. His 
masculine wife, virago as she was, and absolute mistress of the 



SCOTT. 191 

family, as she justly boasted herself on all ordinary occasions, 
was by this great loss terrified into silence and submission, and 
compelled to hide from her husband's observation the bursts of 
her female sorrow. As he had rejected food ever since the disaster 
had hapi)ened, not daring herself to approach him, she had that 
morning with atlectionate artifice employed the young'est and 
favorite child to present her husband with some nourishment. 
His first action was to push it from him with an angry violence 
that frightened the child ; his next, to snatch up the boy and 
devour him with kisses. Such was the disconsolate state of the 
father. 

In another corner of the cottage, her face covered by her 
apron, which was flung over it, sat the mother, the nature of her 
grief sufficiently indicated by the wringing of her hands, and the 
convulsive agitations of her bosom, which the covering could not 
conceal. Two of her gossips, officiously whispering into her ear 
the commonplace topic of resignation under irremediable mis- 
fortune, seemed as if they were endeavoring to stem the grief 
which they could not console. The sorrow of the children was 
mingled with Avonder at the preparations they beheld around 
them, and at the unusual display of wheaten bread and wine, 
which the poorest peasant or fisher offers to the guests on these 
mournful occasions ; and thus their grief for their brother's death 
was almost already lost in admiration of the splendor of his 
funeral. ^ 

The cofiin, covered with a pall, and supported upon handspikes 
by the nearest relatives, now only waited the father to support 
the head, as is customary. Two or three of these privileged 
persons spoke to him, but he answered only by shaking his hand 
and his head in token of refusal. 

The mourners in regular gradation, according to their rank or 
their relationship to the deceased, had filed from the cottage, 
while the younger male children were led along to totter after 
the bier of their brother, and to view with w^onder a ceremonial 
which they could hardly comprehend. The female gossips next 
rose to depart, and, with consideration for the situation of the 
parents, carried along with them the girls of the family, to give 
the unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their hearts to 
each other and soften their grief by communicating it. But their 
kind intention was without effect. The last of them had darkened 
the entrance of the cottage as she went out, and drawn the door 
softly behind her, when the father, first ascertaining by a hasty 
glance that no stranger remained, started up, clasped his hands 
wildly above his head, uttered a cry of despair, which he had 
hitherto repressed, and, in all the impotent impatience of grief, 
half rushed, half staggered forward to the bed on which the 
coffin had been deposited, threw himself down upon it, and 



192 CBABBE. 

smothering, as it were, his head among the bed-clothes, gave vent 
to the full passion of his sorrow. It was in vain that the wretched 
mother, terrified by the vehemence of her husband's affliction, — 
affliction still more fearful as agitating a man of hardened 
manners and a robust frame, — suppressed her own sobs and tears, 
and, pulling him by the skirts of his coat, implored him to rise 
and remember that, though one was removed, he had still a wife 
and children to comfort and support. The appeal came at too 
early a period of his anguish, and was totally unattended to : he 
continued to remain prostrate, indicating, by sobs so bitter and 
violent that they shook the bed and partition against which it 
rested, by clenched hands Avhich grasped the bed-clothes, and by 
the vehement and convulsive motion of his legs, how deep and 
how terrible was the agony of a father's sorrow. 



GEORGE CEABBE, 175^-1832. 

Farewell, dear Crabbe! thou meekest nf mankind, 
With heart all fervor, and all strength of mind; 
With tenderest sympathy for others' woes, 
Fearless all guile and malice to expose ; 
Steadfast of purpose in pursuit of right, 
To drag forth dark hypocrisy to light. 
To brand the oppressor, and to shame the proud, 
To shield the righteous from the slanderous crowd ; 
To error lenient, and to frailty mild, 
llepentance ever was thy welcome child : 
In every state — as husband, parent, friend, 
Scholar or bard — thou couldst the Christian blend. 
Hogarth of Song! be this thy perfect praise: — 
Truth prompted, and Truth purified thy lays ; 
The God of Truth has given thy verse and thee 
Truth's holy palm,— His Immortality. — Duncan.i 

George Crabbe was born at Aldborough, in Suffolk, on the 24th of Decem- 
ber, 1754, and was the son of an officer of the customs. He was apprenticed to 
an apothecary, and received an education merely sufficient to qualify him for 
that occupation, but by no means answering to that eminent literary success 
which he afterwards attained. His poetical taste was first kindled by the 
perusal of verses which from time to time appeared in the Philosophical Maga- 
zine, — a periodical taken by his father. The attractions of the Muse soon over- 
came those of ^sculapius, and in 1778 he quitted the profession of medicine, 
which he had always disliked, and went to London, determining to apply him- 
self to literature. He had but little more in his pocket than a bundle of his 
poems; and these, alas! he could find no one who would voiiture to publish; 
so that at length he printed, at his own risk, his first published work, The Can- 
didate, which appeared anonymously in 1780. It was favorably noticed in the 
Monthly Bevieio, to the editor of which it was addressed. Finding, however, 
that he could not hope for much success while he remained personally un- 



1 John Duncan, Esq., of New College, Oxford. 



CRABBE. 



193 



known, without any introduction, and impelled by distress, he made himself 
known to Edmund Burke. From this moment his fortune was made.i That 
great and good man received him with much kindness, read his productions 
with approbation, afforded him the advantage of his criticism and advice, re- 
commended him to Dodsley the publisher, invited him to his house, and intro- 
duced him to some of his distinguished literary friends, among whom were 
Johnson, Reynolds, and Fox. 

Crabbe's first published poems, after his acquaintance with Burke, were The 
Library and The Village, both of which received the benefit of the observations 
of the great statesman and critic, and the second of which was mainly com- 
posed at Burke's residence at Beaconsfield. In 1781, Crabbe, who had been 
qualifying himself for " the church" at Burke's recommendation, was ''ordained, 
a deacon, and took priest's orders the following year," and he, of course, had 
two or three "livings" presented to him.^ In 1783 appeared The Village, which, 
had received the corrections and commendations of Dr. Johnson.' He next 
produced The Neiospa.per, in 1785, after which his poetical labors were sus- 
pended for some time, probably on account of the duties of his profession and 
the cares of a growing family, though he ascribes it to the loss of those early 
and distinguished friends who had given him the benefit of their criticism. 
In 1809 appeared The Parish Register; in 1810, one of his best poems, The 
Borough; and in 1812, Tales in Verse. His last publication was entitled Tales 
of the Hall, and was published in 1819. . The latter years of his life he spent iu 
the tranquil and amiable exercise of his domestic and clerical duties, at the 
rectory of Trowbridge, esteemed and admired by his parishioners, among whom 
he died, after a short illness, on the 8th of February, 1832.* 

Crabbe is one of the most original of English poets, and, as has been well re- 
marked, " his originality is of that best kind, which displays itself not in tumid 
exaggeration or flighty extravagance, — not in a wide departure from the sober 
standard of truth, — but in a more rigid and uncompromising adherence to it 
than inferior writers venture to attempt." He is pre-eminently the poet of the 
poor, describing with graphic minuteness their privations, temptations, and 
vices. 5 But, while he spares some of their vices, he does more justice to their 



1 " Mr. Crabbe's journal of his London life, 
extending over a period of three months, is 
one of the most affecting documents which 
ever leut an interest to biography. Arriving 
in the metropolis in the beginning of 1800, 
without money, friends, or introductions, he 
rapidly sank into penury and suffering. His 
landlord threatened him, and hunger and a 
jail already stared him in the face. In this 
emergency he ventured to solicit the notice 
of three individuals eminent for station and 
influence. He applied to Lord North, Lord 
Shelburne, and Lord Thurlow, but without 
success. In a happy moment the name of 
Burke entered his mind, and he appealed to 
his sympathy in the following letter. The 
result is well known. In Burke the happy 
poet found not only a patron and a friend, but 
a sagacious adviser and an accomplished 

critic.'' — WiLLMOTT. 

"The tears stood in Crabbe's eyes while he 
talked of Burke's kindness to him in his dis- 
tress; and I remember he said, 'The night 
after I delivered my letter at his door, I was 
iu such a state of agitation that I walked 



Westminster Bridge, backward and forward, 
until daylight.' " — Lockhart. 

2 Lord Ciiancellor Thurlow bestowed upon 
him, successively, the "living" of Frome St. 
Quintin, in Dorsetshire, which he held for six 
yiiars, and the rectories of Muston and West 
Allington, in the diocese of Lincoln. 

3 Johnson, in a letter to Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, thus writes, " I have sent you back Mr. 
Crabbe's poem, which I read with great de- 
light. It is original, vigorous, and elegant." 

4 The following is his portrait as drawn by 
Lockhart : — " His noble forehead, his bright 
beaming eye, without any thing of old age 
about it, — though he was then above seventy, 
— his sweet and, I would say, innocent smile, 
and the calm, mellow tones of his voice, are 
all reproduced the moment I open any page 
of his poetry." 

6 "Mr. Crabbe exhibits the common people 
of England pretty much as they are, and as 
they must appear to every one who will take 
the trouble of examining into their condition; 
at the same time that he renders his sketches 
in a very high degree interesting and beauti- 



17 



194 



CRABBE. 



virtues, and renders them more important objects of consideration, than per- 
haps any other imaginative writer. His chief characteristics are simplicity, 
force, pathos, and truth in describing character; and through these and the 
originality of his style he compels us to bestow our attention on objects that 
are usually neglected. All his works are distinguished by high moral aims. 
He had a heart to feel for his fellow- man in however low and humble a sphere 
he may be placed, and he directs our sympathy where it is well for the cause 
of humanity that it should be directed, but where the squalidness of misery 
and want too frequently repels it.i 

An edition of his poems, in eight volumes, was published by Murray in 1851, 
the first volume being occupied by a very pleasing piece of filial biography by 
his son, the Bev. George Crabbe.* 

THE PARISH WORKHOUSE. 

Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor, • 
"Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door I 
• There, where the putrid vapors, flagging, play, 
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day; 
There children dwell who know no parents' care ; 
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there ; 
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed, 
Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed, 
Dejected widows with unheeded. tears, 
And crippled age with more than childhood-fears ; 
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they ! 
The moping idiot and the madman gay. 

Here too the sick their final doom receive, 
Here brought amid the scenes of grief, to grieve, 
Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow, 
Mix'd with the clamors of the crowd below ; 
Here, sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan, 
And the cold charities of man to man : 
Whose laws indeed for ruin'd age provide, 
And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride ; ' 
But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh, 
And pride imbitters what it can't deny. 
Say ye, oppress'd by some fantastic woes, 
Some jarring nerve that bafHes your repose ; 
Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance, 
With timid eye, to read the distant glance ; 
Who, with sad prayers, the weary doctor tease 
To name the nameless ever-new disease ; 



ful, — by selecting what is most fit for descrip- 
tion, — by grouping them into such forms as 
must catch the attention or awalte the memory, 
—and by scattering over tlie whole such traits 
of moral sensibility, of sarcasm, and of useful 
reflection, as every one must feel to be natural 
and own to be powerful."— ^rfwi^wr^/i Review, 
xii. 133. 

1 "Though his having taken a view of life 
too minute, too humiliating, too painful, and 
too just, may have deprived his works of so 
extensive, or, at least, so brilliant, a popu- 
larity as some of his contemporaries have 



attained, yet I venture to believe that there ia 
no poet of his times who will stand higher in 
the opinion of posterity. He generally deals 
with ' the short and simple annals of the poor;' 
but he exhibits them with such a deep know- 
ledge of human nature, with such general ease 
and simplicity, and such accurate force of ex- 
pression, whether gay or pathetical, as, in my 
humble judgment, no poet, except Shakspeare, 
has excelled." — J. Wilson Croker, in BosweWs 
Jci/msoTi, viii. 164. . 

2 See articles in Edinburgh Review, xii. 131 ; 
xvi. 30; XX. 277 ; xxxii. 118; and Ix. 255. 



CRABBE. 195 

Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, 

Whicli real pain and that alone can cure ; 

How would ye bear in real pain to lie, 

Despised, neglected, left alone to die ? 

How would ye bear to draw your latest breath 

Where all that's wretched paves the way for death ? 

Such is that room which one rude beam divides, 
And naked rafters form the sloping sides ; 
Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen, 
And latli and mud are all that lie between ; 
Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patch'd, gives way 
To the rude tempest,- yet excludes the day : 
Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread. 
The drooping wretch reclines his languid head ; 
For him no hand the cordial cup •applies, 
Or wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes ; 
No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile. 
Or promise hope till sickness wears a smile. 

THE ALMSHOUSE PHYSICIAN. 

But soon a loud and hasty summons calls. 
Shakes the tliin roof, and echoes round the walls; 
Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat, 
All pride and business, bustle and conceit ; 
With looks unalter'd by these scenes of woe. 
With speed that, entering, speaks his haste to go. 
He bids the gazing throng around him fly, 
And carries fate and physic in his eye ; 
A potent quack, long versed in human ills, 
Who first iuv^ults the victim whom he kills ; 
Whose murderous hand a drowsy bench protect, 
And whose most tender mercy is neglect. 

Paid by the parish for attendance here. 
He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer ; 
In haste he seeks the bed where misery lies. 
Impatience mark'd in his averted eyes ; 
And, some habitual queries hurried o'er, 
Without reply he rushes on the door ; 
His drooping patient, long inured to pain. 
And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain ; 
He ceases now the feeble help to crave 
Of man ; and silent sinks into the grave. 

THE HARDSHIPS OF THE POOR. 

Or will you deem them amply paid in health. 
Labor's fair child, that languishes with wealth ? 
Go, then ! and see them rising with the sun, 
Through a long course of daily toil to run ; 
See them beneath the dog-star's raging heat, 
When the knees tremble and the temples beat ; 
Behold them, leaning on their scythes, look o'er 
The labor past, and toils to come explore ; 
See them alternate suns and showers engage. 
And hoard up aches and anguish for their age^ 



19a CRABBE. 

Tiirough fens and marshy moors their steps pursue, 
• When their warm pores imbibe the evening dew. 
There may you see the youth of slender frame 
Contend with weakness, weariness, and shame ; 
Yet urged along, and proudly loath to yield, 
He strives to join his fellows of the field ; 
Till long-contending nature droops at last. 
Declining health rejects his poor repast. 
His cheerless spouse the coming danger sees. 
And mutual murmurs urge the slow disease. 

Yet grant them health, 'tis not for us to tell, 
Though the head droops not, that the heart is well ; 
Or will you praise that homely, healthy fare, 
Plenteous and plain, that happy peasants share ? 
Oh ! trifle not with wants you cannot feel, 
Nor mock the misery of a stinted meal ; 
Homely not wholesome, plain not plenteous, such 
As you who praise would never deign to touch. 

Ye gentle souls, who dream of rural ease. 
Whom the smooth stream and smoother sonnet please, 
Go ! if the peaceful cot your praises share. 
Go look within, and ask if peace be there : 
If peace ])e his, — that drooping, weary sire. 
Or- theirs, that offspring round their feeble fire ; 
Or hers, that matron pale, whose trembling hand 
Turns on the wretched hearth the expiring brand. 



A BETROTHED PAIR IN HUMBLE LIFE. 

Yes, there are real mourners : I have seen 
A fair, sad girl, mild, suffering, and serene ; 
Attention through the day her duties claim' d. 
And to be useful as resign'd she aim'd ; 
Keatly she dress'd, nor vainly seem'd to expect 
Pity for grief, or pardon for neglect ; 
But Avhcn her wearied parents sunk to sleep. 
She sought her place to meditate and weep : 
Tben to her mind was all the past display'd, 
That faithful memory brings to sorrow's aid ; 
For then she thought on one regretted youth, 
Her tender trust and his unquestion'd truth ; 
In every place she wander'd where they'd been, 
And sadly sacred held tlie parting scene ; 
Where last for sea he took his leave, — that place 
With double interest would she nightly trace ; 
For long the courtship was, and he would say, 
Each time he sail'd, "This once, and then the dayf 
Yet prudence tarried ; but when last he went, 
He drew from pitying love a full consent. 

Happy he sail'd, and great the care she took ; 
That he should softly sleep and smartly look ; 
White was his better linen, and his check 
Was made more trim than any on the deck ; 
And every comfort men at sea can know 
Was hers to buy, to make, and to bestow ; 



CRABBE. 197 

For he to Greenland sail'd, and much she told 
How he should guard against the climate's cold. 
Yet saw not danger, daiigers he'd withstood, 
Nor could she trace the fever in his blood. 
His messmates smiled at flushings in'his cheek, 
And he, too, smiled, but seldom would he speak ; 
For now he found the danger, felt the pain. 
With grievous symptoms he could not explain. 

He caird his friend, and prefaced with a sigh 
A lover's message, — "Thomas, I must die; 
Would I could see my Sally, and could rest 
My throbbing temples on her faithful breast, 
And gazing go ! if not, this trifle take, 
And say, till death 1 wore it for her sake. 
Yes, I must die, — blow on, sweet breeze, blow on ! 
Give me one look before my life be gone ; 
Oh, give me that ! and let me not despair, — 
One last fond look, — and now repeat the prayer." 

He had his Avish, had more. I Avill not paint 
The lovers' meeting : she beheld him faint, — 
With tender fears she took a nearer view. 
Her terrors doubling as her hopes withdrew ; 
He tried to smile, and, half succeeding, said, 
" Yes, I must die," — and hope forever fled. 

Still long she nursed him ; tender thoughts meantime 
Were interchanged, and hopes and views sublime. 
To her he came to die, and every day 
She took some portion of the dread away ; 
With him she pray'd, to him his Bible read, 
Soothed the faint heart, and held the aching head ; 
She came with smiles the hour of pain to cheer, 
Apart she sigh'd, alone she shed the tear; 
Then, as ^ i)reaking from a cloud, she gave 
Fresh light, and gilt the prospect of the grave. 

One day he lighter seem'd, and they forgot 
The care, the dread, the anguish of their lot ; 
They spoke with cheerfulness, and seem'd to think, 
Yet said not so, — " Perhaps he Avill not sink." 
A sudden brightness in his look appear' d, 
A sudden vigor in his voice was heard ; 
She had been reading in the Book of Prayer, ^ 
And led him forth, and placed him in his chair; 
Lively he seem'd, and spoke of all he knew, 
The friendly many and the favorite few ; 
Nor one that day did he to mind recall 
But she has treasured, and she loves them all. 
When in her way she meets them, they appear 
Peculiar people, — death has made them dear. 
He named his friend, but then his hand she press'd, 
And fondly whisper'd, "Thou must go-to rest." 
" I go," he said, but as he spoke she found 
His hand more cold, and fluttering was the sound ; 
Then gazed affrighted, but she caught a last, 
A dying look of love, and all was past. 

Siie placed a decent stone his grave above, 
Neatly engraved, an offering of her love : 

17* 



198 MACKINTOSH. 

For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed, 

Awake alike to duty and the dead. 

She would have grieved had friends presumed to spare 

The least assistance, — 'tAvas her proper care. 

Here will she come, and on the grave will sit, 

Folding her arms, in long abstracted fit ; 

But if observer pass, will take her round. 

And careless seem, for she v^'ould not be found ; 

Then go again, and thus her hour employ. 

While visions please her, and while woes destroy. 



JAMES MACKINTOSH, 1765-18S2. 

James Mackintosh, one of the most distinguished men of his time, and who 
attained eminence in literature, philosophy, history, and politics, was born in 
Aldourie, on the banks of Loch Ness, Scotland, on the 24th of October, 1765. 
At a very early age he exhibited a remarkable fondness for abstruse specu- 
lations, and read such hooks as fell in his way, among which were the works 
of Pope and Swift. In 1780 he went to the college of Aberdeen, where he was 
recognized, by common consent, as the first scholar; while his courteous 
demeanor, refined manners, playful fancy, and easy flow of elocution rendered 
him a general favorite among his companions. 

In 1784, having taken his degree, he set out for Edinburgh to commence 
the study of medicine, which he had chosen as his profession. Here a new 
world was opened to him, and he was introduced into the first literary society 
of that renowned metropolis. But metaphysical and political and scientific 
speculation, rather than the study of his profession, %ngrossed his attention; 
and, after three years spent in irregular application, he became a candidate for 
a degree. Having obtained his diploma, he quitted Edinburgh in September, 
1787, and early in 1788 he set out for London, arriving at that great theatre 
of action at one of the most critical periods of the world's history, — the 
period of the French Eevolution. In the discussions then and there going 
on he was eager to take a part; and his failure to receive a medical appoint- 
ment, which he had expected, led him to think seriously of abandoning the 
profession of medicine. Early in 1789 he was married to Miss Catharine 
Stuart, a young lady of a respectable Scotch family; and at the age of twenty- 
four he found himself with no prospect of any immediate professional settle- 
ment, his little fortune left him by his father rapidly diminishing, and with 
a wife to provide for. 

An opportunity now presented itself which was to give to Mackintosh that 
prominence in the world of politics which he had so long desired. In 1790 
appeared Burke's celebrated Refiections on the French Hevolution, than which 
no work, probably, ever excited a more immediate, intense, and universal 
interest in Great Britain. Numerous replies immediately appeared; but none, 
excepting the Rights of Man of Thomas Paine, were deemed of any remark- 
able power, tmtil, \r\, April, 1791, appeared Vindicice Gallicce, or, A Defence 
of the French Revolution and its English Admirers against the Accusations of the 
ftight Honorable Edmund Burke. This work had been finished in a great 



MACKINTOSH. 



199 



huny; but, with all its defects and imperfections, it at once placed the author 
in the very front rank of those who uphekl the cause of France, caused him to 
be courted and caressed on all sides, and made him, as he says, "the lion 
of London." 

In 1795 Mr. Mackintosh was called to the bar, at which he rose with rapid 
and sure steps. In 1799 he delivered a course of lectures, at Lincoln's Inu, 
upon the Law of Nature and of Nations, which gained him much credit. In 
18u3 an event occurred in his life which gave him the highest fame as an 
advocate. On the 21st of February of that year took place the celebrated 
trial of M. Peltier, an emigrant French Royalist, for a libel on the First Consul 
of France, — Bonaparte. Mr. Mackintosh was counsel for the accused; and his 
address delivered on that occasion has been said to be "one of the most 
splendid displays of eloquence ever exhibited in a court of justice, — a monu- 
ment of genius, learning, and eloquence." 

In 1804 he was appointed by the government to the office of Recorder of 
Bombay, and, after having received the honor of knighthood, sailed with his 
family for India. By this step he was in hopes of improving his pecuniary 
resources, and he laid out much work in the walks of literature; but he re- 
turned home in 1812 with broken health and sjjirits, uncertain prospects, and 
vast materials for works which were never to be completed. He soon after 
entered Parliament, and continued in it to the end of his days, — always true 
to liberal principles. He contributed articles of great value to the Edinburgh 
Review, and, in a preliminary discourse to the E^icyclopcedia, furnished by far 
the best history of Ethical Philosophy that has ever been given to the world. 
He also pviblished, in three volumes, a popular and abridged History of Eng- 
land, for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopczdia, which has been highly praised for its 
enlarged and liberal views; and he was engaged upon a History of the Bevo- 
lution of 1688,^ when he was suddenly called away, on the 30th of May, 1832, 
"regretted with more sincerity, and admired with less envy, than any other 
man of his age."^ 

JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS. 

ToAvards the end of his life, when intercourse with the world 
had considerably softened his style, he jDublished his Lives of the 
English Poets, a work of which the subject insures popularity, 



1 Read a masterlj' account of this fragment 
in the sixty-second volume of the Edinburgh 
Review ; also Memoirs of His Life, by his son 
Robert. 

2 " The intellectual character of Sir James 
Mackintosh cannot be unknown to any one 
acquainted with his works, or who has ever read 
many pages of his Memoirs ; and it is needless, 
therefore, to speak here of his great know- 
ledge, the singular union of ingenuity and 
soundness in his speculations, his perfect can- 
dor and temper in discussion, the pure and 
lofty morality to which he strove to elevate 
the minds of others, and in his own conduct 
to conform. These merits, we believe, will no 
longer be denied by any who have heard of his 
name or looked at his writings. But there 
■were other traits of his intellect which could 
only be known to those who were of his ac- 
quaintance, and which it is still desirable that 



the readers of the Memoirs should bear in 
mind. One of these was that ready and pro- 
digious memory by which all that he learned 
seemed to be at once engraved on the proper 
compartment of his mind, and to present it- 
self the moment it was required; another, 
still more remai-kable, was the singular ma- 
turity and completeness of all his views and 
opinions, even upon the most abstruse and 
complicated questions, though raised without 
design or preparation, in the casual course of 
conversation. * * * The vast extent of his 
information, and the natural gayety of his 
temper, joined to the inherent kindness of his 
disposition, made his conversation at once the 
most instructive and the most generally pleas- 
ing that could be imagined." Read a very 
interesting and able notice of his Memoirs iu 
the Edinburgh Revieiv, Ixii. 205. 



200 MACKINTOSH. 

and on which his fame probably now depends. He seems to have 
poured into it the miscellaneous information which he had col- 
lected and the literary opinions which he had formed during his 
long reign over, the literature of London. The critical part has 
produced the warmest agitations of literary faction. The time 
may, perhaps, now be arrived for an impartial estimate of its 
merits. Whenever understanding alone is suthcient for poetical 
criticism, the decisions of Johnson are generally right. But the 
beauties of poetry must be felt before their causes are investi- 
gated. There is a poetical sensibility which, in the progress of 
the mind, becomes as distinct a power as a musical ear or a pic- 
turesque eye. Without a considerable degree of this sensibility, 
it is as vain for a man of the greatest understanding to speak of 
the higher beauties of poetry as it is for a blind man to speak of 
colors. To adopt the warmest sentiments of poetry, to realize its 
boldest imagery, to yield to every impulse of enthusiasm, to sub- 
mit to the illusions of fancy, to retire with the poet into his ideal 
worlds, were dispositions wholly foreign from the worldly sagacity 
and stern shrewdness of Johnson. If this unpoetical character 
be considered, if the force of prejudice be estimated, if we bear 
in mind that in this work of his old age we must expect to find 
him enamored of every paradox which he had supported with 
brilliant success, and that an old man seldom w^armly admires 
those works which have ajDpeared since his sensibility has become 
sluggish, and his literary system formed, we shall be able' to 
account for most of the unjust judgments of Johnson, without re- 
course to any suppositions inconsistent with honesty and integ- 
rity. 

As in his judgment of life and character, so in his criticism on 
poetry, he was a sort of freethinker. He suspected the refined 
of affectation, he rejected the enthusiastic as absurd, and he took 
it for granted that the mysterious was unintelligible. He came 
into the world when the school of Dryden and Pope gave the 
law to English poetry. In that school he had himsen learned to 
be a lofty and vigorous declaimer in harmonious verse ; beyond 
that school his unforced admiration perhaps scarcely soared ; and 
his highest effort of criticism was accordingly the noble panegyric 
on Dryden. His criticism owed its popularity as much to its 
defects as to its excellencies. It was on a level with the majority 
of readers,— persons of good sense and information, but of no 
exquisite sensibility ; and to their minds it derived a false appear- 
ance of solidity from that very narrowness which excluded those 
grander efforts of imagination to which Aristotle and Bacon con- 
fined the name of poetry. 

Among the victories gained by Milton, one of the most signal 
is that which he obtained over all the prejudices of Johnson, who 
was compelled to make a most vigorous, though evidently re- 



MACKINTOSH. 201 

luctant, effort to do justice to the fame and genius of the greatest 
of English poets. The ahicrity with which he seeks every occa- 
sion to escape from this painful duty, in observation upon Milton's 
life and minor poems, sufficiently attests the irresistible power of 
Paradise Lost. As he had no feeling of the lively and graceful, 
we must not wonder at his injustice to Prior. Some accidental 
impression, concurring wdth a long habit of indulging and vent- 
ing every singularity, seems necessary to account for his having 
forgotten that Swift was a wit. As the Seasons appeared during 
the susceptible part of Johnson's life, his admiration of Thomson 
prevailed over that ludicrous prejudice which he professed against 
Scotland, perhaps becaiise it Avas a Presbyterian country. His 
insensibility to the higher order of poetry, his dislike of a Whig 
university, and his scorn of a fantastic character, combined to 
produce that monstrous example of critical injustice which he 
entitles the Life of Gray. 

Such is the character which may be bestowed on Johnson by 
those wdio feel a profound reverence for his virtues, and a respect 
approaching to admiration for his intellectual powers, without 
adopting his prejudices or being insensible to his defects. 

BEBELLION. 

A wanton rebellion, when considered w^ith the aggravation of 
its ordinary consequences, is one of the greatest of crimes. The 
chiefs of an inconsiderable and ill-concerted revolt, however pro- 
voked, incur the most formidable responsibility to their followers 
and their country. 

THE PEOGRESSIVENESS OF THE RACE. 

Society is inevitably progressive. In government, commerce 
has overthrown that "feudal and chivalrous" system under whose 
shade it first grew^ In religion, learning has subverted that super- 
stition whose opulent endowments had first fostered it. Peculiar 
circumstances softened the barbarism of the Middle Ages to a 
degree which favored the admission of commerce and the growth 
of knowledge. These circumstances were connected with the 
manners of chivalry ; but the sentiments peculiar to that insti- 
tution could only be preserved by the situation wdiich gave them 
birth. They were themselves enfeebled in the progress from 
ferocity and turbulence, and almost obliterated by tranquillity 
and refinement. But the auxiliaries which the manners of 
chivalry had in rude ages reared, gathered strength from its 
weakness, and flourished in its decay. Commerce and diffused 
knowledge have, in fact, so completely assumed the ascendant in 
polished nations that it will be difficult to discover any relics of 
Gothic manners but in a fantastic exterior, which has survived 



202 



MACKINTOSH. 



the generous illusions that made these manners splendid and 
seductive. Their direct influence has long ceased in Europe; 
but their indirect influence, through the medium of those causes 
which would not perhaps have existed but for the mildness which 
chivalry created in the midst of a barbarous, age, still operates 
with increasing vigor. The manners of the Middle Ages were, 
in the most singular sense, compulsory. Enterprising benevo- 
lence was produced by general -fierceness, gallant courtesy by 
ferocious rudeness, and artificial gentleness resisted the torrent 
of natural barbarism. But a less incongruous system has suc- 
ceeded, in which commerce, which unites men's interests, and 
knowledge, wdiich excludes those prejudices that tend to embroil 
them, present a broader basis for the stability of civilized and 
beneficent manners. 

Mr. Burke, indeed, forebodes the most fatal consequences to 
literature from events which he su23poses to have given a mortal 
blow to the spirit of" chivalry. I have ever been protected from 
such apprehensions by my belief in a very simple truth, — that 
diffused knowledge immortalizes itself. A literature which is con- 
fined to a few may be destroyed by the massacre of scholars and 
the conflagration of libraries ; but the diffiised knowledge of the 
'present day could only be annihilated by the extirpation of the 
civilized part of mankind.^ — From the Vlndicice Gallicoe. 

THE BLESSINGS OF A FREE PRESS. 

. Gentlemen, there is one point of view in which this case seems 
to merit your most serious attention. The real prosecutor is the 
master of the greatest empire the civilized world ever saw ; the 
defendant is a defenceless, proscribed exile. I consider this case, 
therefore, as the first of a long series of conflicts between the 
greatest power in ther world and the only free press remain- 
ing in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the English press 
is new, — it is a proud and a melancholy distinction. Before the 
great earthquake of the French Revolution had swallowed up all 
the asylums of free discussion on the Continent, we enjoyed that 
privilege, indeed, more fully than others, but we did not enjoy 
it exclusively. In Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial 
towns of Germany, the press was either legally or practically 
free. 

But all these and other feeble states — these monuments of the 
justice of Europe, the asylums of peace, of industry, and litera- 
ture, the organs of public reason, the refuge of oppressed inno- 



1 " We are living at a period of most won- 
derful transition, wliicli tends rapidly to accom- 
plish that great end to which, indeed, all his- 
tory points, — THE REALIZATION OF THE UNITY 

Of MANKIND ! Not a unity which breaks down- 



and levels the peculiar characterlstica of the 
different nations of the earth, Imt rather a 
unity the resiilt and product of those very 
national varieties and antagonistic qualities." 
— Prince Albert. 



HANNAH MORE. 203 

cence and persecuted trutli — have perished with those ancient 
principles which were their sole guardians and protectors. They 
have been swallowed up by that fearful convulsion which has 
shaken the uttermost corners of the earth. They are destroyed 
and gone forever ! One asylum of free discussion is still invio- 
late. There is still one spot in Europe where man can freely 
exercise his reason on the most important concerns of society, 
where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts, of the 
proudest and most powerful tyrants. The press of England is 
still free. It is guarded by the free . constitution of our fore- 
fathers. It is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen ; 
and I trust I may venture to say that, if it be to fall, it will fall 
only under the ruins of the British empire. It is an awful con- 
sideration, gentlemen. Every other monument of European 
liberty has perished. That ancient fabric which has been gra- 
dually reared by the wisdom and virtue of our fathers still stands. 
It stands — ^thanks be to God !— solid and entire ; but it stands 
alone, and it stands in ruins ! Believing, then, as I do, that we 
are on the eve of a great struggle, — that this is only the first 
battle between reason and power, — that you have now in your 
hands, committed to your trust, the only remains of free dis- 
cussion in Europe, now confined, to this kingdom ; addressing 
you, therefore, as the guardians of the most important interests 
of mankind;- convinced that the unfettered exercise of reason 
depends more on your present verdict than on any other that 
was ever delivered by a jury, — I trust I may rely with confidence 
on the issue, — I trust that yon will consider yourselves as the 
advanced guard of liberty, as having this- day to fight the first 
battle of free discussion against the most formidable enemy that 
it ever encountered. — Speech in Defence of M. Peltier. 



HANNAH MORE, 1745-1833. 

This most excellent and accomplished woman was the daughter of Jacob 
More, a village schoolmaster at Stapleton, in Gloucestershire, where she w.as 
born .in the year 1745. Soon after this, Mr. More removed to Bristol, where he 
was appointed to take charge of the parochial school of St: Mary Redcliff. The 
family, which numbered four other daughters, soon began to attract notice, as 
one in which there was an unusual degree of talent; and, shortly after re- 
moving to Bristol, they opened a boarding and day school for young ladies, 
which continued for many years the most flourishing establishment of the 
kind in the West of England. Hannah was, from early life, the most remark- 
able of the family. Her first literary efforts were some poetical pieges written 
for the edification of her pupils. Among these was the Search after Happiness, 
—a pastoral drama, which she wrote at eighteen, but did not publish till 1773. 



204 



HANNAH MORE. 



It met with a very flattering reception. She was thus induced to try her 
strength 'in the higher walks of dramatic poetry, and she successively brought 
forward for the stage her tragedies of the Inflexible Captive, Percy, and The Fatal 
Falsehood; of these, Percy was the most popular, having been acted fourteen 
nights successively. The reputation which she thus acquired introduced her 
into the best literary society of London,^ — into the circle in which Johnson and 
Burke and Sir Joshua Reynolds moved. But her dramatic career closed with 
the production of these tragedies. Shortly after, her opinions upon the theatre 
underwent a decided change: and, as she has stated in the preface to her 
tragedies, she did not " consider the stage, in its present state, as becoming the 
appearance or the countenance of a Christian. "^ This great change in her 
spiritual views Avas followed by a corresjjonding change in her manner of life. 

Under a deep conviction that to live to the glory of God and for the good 
of our fellow-creatures is the great object of human existence, and the only one 
which can bring peace at the last, she quitted, in the prime of her days, the 
bright circles of fashion and literature, and, retiring into the neighborhood of 
Bristol, devoted herself to a life of active Christian benevolence, and to the 
composition of various works having for their object the moral and religious 
improvement of mankind. Her practical conduct thus beautifully exemplified 
the moral energy of her Christian principles. 

She retired into the country in 1786, and in two years after published her 
first prose piece, Thoughts on the Manners of the Great, and a Poem on the Slave- 
Trade. These were followed, in 1791, by her Estimate of the Religion of the 
Fashionable World. In 1795 she commenced, at Bath, in monthly numbers, 
The Cheap Repository, — a series of instructive and interesting tales, one of 
which is the world-renowned Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. The success of 
this publication, so seasonable, at a time when the infidelity of France had too 
many admirers in England, was extraordinary and unprecedented j for it is 
said that in one year one million copies of the work were sold.^ In 1799 ap- 
peared her Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, which led to 
an intention, warmly advocated by Porteus, the Bishop of London, of commit- 
ting to her the education of Charlotte, Princess of Wales. This, however, was 
not effected ; but it led to the publication of 'hevHints toioards forming the Cha- 
racter of a Young Pinjicess, in 1805. Then came what has perhaps been her 
most popular work, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, published in 1809, and which 
passed through at least six editions in one year. It is a very entertaining and 
instructive novel, full of striking remarks on men and manners, and portrays 
the kind of ch-aracter which, in the estimation of our author, it is desirable that 
young ladies should possess. 

In 1811 and 1812 appeared her Practical Piety and Christian Morals, and in 
"1815, her Essay on the Character and Writings of St. Paul, — a far bolder under- 
taking than any in which she had previously been engaged, and which she has 
executed to the delight of every reader. Soon after the death of her last sister, 



1 She went to London in 1774. 

2 While her mind was in this state of transi- 
tion she published, in 1782, a volume of Sacred 
Dramas, to which was annexed a poem called 
Scnsibilit)/ ; all of which were received by the 
public with great favor. 

3 " Hannah . More"s eminently useful life 
manifested itself in nothing more than in the 



effort she made to instruct the ignorant, 
through the medium of moral and religious 
tracts and by the establishment of schools. 
These were made a blessing on a wide scale; 
while their good effects are continued to this 
time, and are likely to be perpetuated." — 
Cottle's Reminiscences of Southey and CoU' 
ridge. 



HANNAH MORE. 



205 



Martha, in 1819, her literary career terminated with Moral Sketches and Be- 
/lections on Prayer. She was now aged and infirm, but still continued to take 
a great interest in the welfare of charity schools, Bible and missionary societies, 
and other benevolent and religious institutions. In 1828 she left Barley Wood,* 
where she had resided from the beginning of the century, and took up her 
abode at Clifton, very near Bristol, at both of which places she had many 
valuable friends, though she had outlived every known relation on the earth. 
Here she spent her last days, supported in the afflictions of age by the consola- 
tions of that religion to the service of which she had devoted the vigor of her 
life, and expired, Avith the calmness and full faith of the Christian, on the 7th 
of September, 1833.2 

Few authors of any age or country have done more to improve mankind — 
to make them wiser and better for both worlds — than Hannah More. All her 
writings are devoted to the cause of sound Christian morals and practical 
righteousness.3 Her poetry, though it takes not a very high rank among the 
productions of the Muse, is easy in its versification, displays a considerable 
degree of imagination, and is full of excellent sentiments and judicious re- 
marks upon men and manners.'' Her prose is justly admired for its senten- 
tious wisdom, its practical good sense, its masculine vigor, and the elevated, 
moral, and religious tone that pervades it.** 

THE FAITH AND WORKS OF THE QUAKERS CONSISTENT. 

Who makes the sum of human blessings less, 

Or sinks the stock of general happiness, 

Though erring fame may grace, though false renown 

His life may blazon or his memory crown, 

Yet the last audit shall reverse the cause, 

And God shall vindicate his broken laws. 

The purest wreaths which hang on glory's shrine. 
For empires founded, peaceful Penn ! are thine ; 
No blood-stain'd laurels crown'd thy virtuous toil, 
No slaughtered natives drencli'd thy fair-earn'd soil. 

Still thy meek spirit in thy flock^ survives ; 
Consistent still, their doctrines rule their lives ; 
Thy followers only have effaced the shame 
Inscribed by Slavery on the Christian name. 



1 A cottag^e delightfully situated in the vil- 
lage of "NVringtoii, in Somersetshire, a village 
renowned as the birthplace of John Locke. 
" Miss Hannah More lived with her four sis- 
ters, Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Martha, 
after they quitted their school in Park Street, 
Bristol, at a small neat cottage in Somerset- 
ahire, called Cowslip Green. The Misses More, 
some years afterwards, built a. better house, 
and called it Barley Wood, ou the side of a 
hill about a mile from M'ringtou. Here they 
all lived in the highest degree respected and 
beloved, their house the seat of piety, cheer- 
fulness, literature, and hospitality; and they 
themselves receiving the honor of more visits 
from bishops, nobles, and persons of distinc- 
tion than, perha])s, any private family in the 
kingdom."' — Cottle's Reminiscences of SouUiey 
and Coleridge. 

2 Read an excellent article on Hannah 



More's writings and life, in American Quar- 
terly Review, xvi. 519. Also, London Quar- 
terly, lii. 416. 

3 A writer, in an article in the fifty-second 
volume of the Quarterly Review, thus strongly 
remarks, " How many have thanked God for 
the hour that first made them acquainted 
with the writings of Hannah More! She did 
as much real good in her generation as any 
woman that ever held the pen." 

* In the house of Garrick, where she was a 
constant visitor in the earlier part of her life, 
she was called "The Tenth Muse;" and then, 
for shortness, and still more refinedly, "Miss 
Nine." 

5 Horace Walpole used to call her his " Holy 
Hannah." 

The Quakers have emancipated all their 
slaves throughout America. — H. M, 



IS 



206 HANNAH MORE. 

"What page of human annals can record 
A deed so bright as human rights restored? 
Oh, may that godlike deed, that shining page, 
Redeem our lame, and consecrate our age! 



WISDOM. 

Ah! when did Wisdom covet length of days, 
Or seek its bliss in pleasure, wealth, or praise? 
Is o : Wisdom views with an indilier ent eye 
All finite joys, all blessings born to die; 
The soul on earth is an immortal guest, 
Compell'd to starve at an unreal feast: 
A spark which upward tends by nature's force; 
A stream diverted from its parent source; 
A drop dissever'd from the boundless sea; 
A moment parted from eternity ; 
A pilgrim panting for a rest to come; 
An exile anxious for his native home. 



THE TWO WEAVERS. 

As at their work two Aveavers sat, 
Beguiling time with friendly chat, 
They toucli'd upon the price of meat, 
So high, a weaver scarce could eat. 

"What with ray brats and sickly wife," 
Quoth Dick, "I'm almost tired of life; 
So hard my work, so poor my fare, 
'Tis more than mortal man can bear. 

"How glorious is the rich man's state ! 
His house so fine ! his wealth so great 1 
Heaven is unjust, you must agree ; 
Why all to him? why none to me? 

"In spite of what the Scripture teaches, 
In spite of all the parson preaches, 
This world (indeed, I've thought so long) 
Is ruled, methinks, extremely wrong. 

"Where'er I look, howe'er I range, 
'Tis all confused, and hard, and strange; 
The good are troubled and oppress' d. 
And all the wicked are the bless'd." 

Quoth John, " Our ignorance is the cause 
Why thus we blame our Maker's laws ; 
Porte of his ways alone we know ; 
'Tis aU that man can see below. 

"Seest thou that carpet, not half done, 
Which thou, dear Dick, hast well begun? 
Behold the wild confusion there. 
So rude the mass, it makes one stare ! 



1 



HANNAH MORE. 207 

"A stranger, ignorant of the trade, 
Would say, no meaning's there convey'd ; 
For where' s the middle, where' s the border ? 
Thy carpet now is all disorder." 

Quoth Dick, " My work is yet in bits, 
But still in every part it tits ; 
Besides, you reason like a lout : — 
Why, man, that carpet's inside out!" 

Says John, " Thou say'st the thing I mean, 
And now I hope to cure thy spleen ; 
This world, which clouds thy soul with doubt, 
Is but a carpet inside out. 

"As when we view these shreds and ends 
We know not what the whole intends. 
So, when on earth things look but odd, 
They're working still some scheme of God. 

"No plan, no pattern, can we trace; 
All wants proportion, truth, and grace; 
The motley mixture we deride, 
Nor see the beauteous upper side. 

"But when we reach that world of light. 
And view those works of God aright, 
Then shall we see the whole design, 
And own the workman is divine. 

"What now seem random strokes will there 
All order and design appear; 
Then shall we praise what here we spurn' d. 
For then the carpet shcdl be turn'd.'" 

"Thou'rt right," quoth Dick; "no more I'll grumble 
That this sad world's so strange a jumble ; 
My impious doubts are put to flight, 
For my own carpet sets me right." 



THE PROPER EDUCATION FOR FEMALES. 

Since, then, there is a season when the youthful must cease to 
be young, and the beautiful to excite admiration ; to learn how 
to grow old gracefully is, perhaps, one of the rarest and most 
valuable arts which can be taught to woman. And it must be 
confessed it is a most severe trial for those women to be called to 
lay down beauty, who have nothing else to take up. It is for 
this sober season of life that education should lay up its rich 
resources. However disregarded they may hitherto have been, 
they will be wanted now. When admirers fall away, and flat- 
terers become mute, the mind will be compelled to retire into 
itself; and if it find no entertainment at home, it will be driven 
back again upon the world with increased force. Yet, forgetting 



208 HANNAH MORE. 

this, do we not seem to educate our daughters exclusively for the 
transient period of youth, when it is to maturer life we ought to 
advert? Do we not educate them for a crowd, forgetting that 
they are to live at home? for the world, and not for themselves? 
for show, and not for use? for time, and not for eternity? 

Not a few of the evils of the present day arise from a new and 
perverted application of terms ; among these, perhaps, there is 
not one more abused, misunderstood, or misapplied, than the term 
aGcomplishments. This word, in its original meaning, signifies 
completeness, perfection. But I may safely appeal to the observa- 
tion of mankind, whether they do not meet with swarms of youth- 
ful females, issuing from our boarding-schools, as well as emerging 
from the more private scenes of domestic education, who are 
introduced into the world under the broad and universal title of 
accomplished young ladies, of all of whom it cannot very truly and 
correctly be pronounced that they illustrate the definition by a 
completeness which leaves nothing to be added, and a perfection 
which leaves nothing to be desired. 

It would be well if we would reflect that we have to educate 
not only rational but accountable beings ; and, remembering this, 
should we not be solicitous to let our daughters learn of the well- 
taught and associate with the well-bred? In training them, 
should we not carefully cultivate intellect, ijuplant religion, and 
cherish modesty? Then whatever is engaging in manners would 
be the natural result of whatever is just in sentiment and correct 
in principle ; softness would grow out of humility, and external 
delicacy would spring from purity of heart. Then the decorums, 
the proprieties, the elegancies, and even the graces, as far as they 
are simple, pure, and honest, would follow as an almost inevitable 
consequence ; for to follow in the train of the Christian virtues, 
and not to take the lead of them, is the proper place which reli- 
gion assigns to the graces. 

It will be prudent to reflect that in all polished countries an 
entire devotedness to the fine arts has been one grand source of 
the corruption of the women; and so justly were these pernicious 
consequences appreciated by the Greeks, among whom these arts 
were carried to the highest possible perfection, that they seldom 
allowed them to be cultivated to a very exquisite degree by women 
of great purity of character. And while corruption, brought on 
by an excessive cultivation of the arts, has contributed its full 
share to the decline of states, it has always furnished an infallible 
symptom of their impending fall. The satires of the most pene- 
trating and judicious of the Roman poets, corroborating the testi- 
monies of the most accurate of their historians, abound with in- 
vectives against the general depravity of manners introduced by 
the corruj^t habits of female education, so that the modesty of the 
Roman matron, and the chaste demeanor of her virgin daughters, 



HANNAH MORE. 209 

which, amid the stern virtues of the stat^, were as immaculate 
and pure as the honor of the Roman citizen, fell a sacrifice to 
the luxurious dissipation brought in by their Asiatic conquest ; 
after which the females were soon taught a complete change of 
character. They were instructed to accommodate their talents 
of pleasing to the more vitiated tastes of the other sex ; and began 
to study every grace and every art which might captivate the 
exhausted hearts and excite the wearied and capricious inclina- 
tions of the men ; till, by a rapid, and at length complete, ener- 
vation, the Roman character lost its signature, and, through a 
quick succession of slavery, effeminacy, and vice, sunk into that 
degeneracy of which some* of the modern Italian states now serve 
to furnish a too just specimen. 

QUALITIES THAT ARE PREFERABLE TO GENIUS. 

Patience, diligence, quiet and unfatigued perseverance, industry, 
regularity, and economy of time, — as these are the dispositions I 
would labor to excite, so these are the qualities I would warmly 
commend. So far from admiring genius, or extolling its prompt 
effusions, I would rather intimate that excellence, to a certain 
degree, is in the power of every competitor ; that it is the vanity 
of overvaluing herself for supposed original powers, and slacken- 
ing exertion in consequence of that vanity, which often leaves 
the lively ignorant, and the witty superficial. A girl who over- 
hears her mother tell the company that she is a genius, and is so 
quick that she never thinks of applying to her task till a few 
minutes before she is to be called to repeat it, will acquire such a 
confidence in her own abilities that she will be advancing in con- 
ceit as she is falling short in knowledge. Whereas, if she were 
made to suspect that her want of application rather indicated a 
deficiency than a superiority in her understanding, she would 
become industrious in proportion as she became modest ; and by 
thus adding the diligence of the humble to the talents of the 
ingenious, she might really attain a degree of excellence which 
mere quickness of parts, too lazy because too proud to apply, 
seldom attains. 

There is a custom among teachers, which is not the more right 
for being common ; — they are apt to bestow an undue proportion 
of pains on children of the best capacity, as if only geniuses were 
worthy of attention. They should reflect that in moderate talents, 
carefully cultivated, we are, perhaps, to look for the chief happi- 
ness and virtue of societjn If superlative genius had been gene- 
rally necessary, its existence would not have been so rare ; for 
Omnipotence could easily have made those talents common, which 
we now consider as extraordinary, had they been necessary to 
the perfection of his plan. Besides, while we are conscientiously 
instructing children of moderate capacity, it is a comfort to 



210 HANNAH MORE. 

reflect that if no labor will raise tliem to a high degree in the 
scale of intellectual distinction, yet they may be led on to per- 
fection in that road in which " a wayfaring man, though simple, 
shall not err." And when a mother feels disposed to repine that 
her family is not likely to exhibit a group of future wits and 
growing beauties, let her console herself by looking abroad into 
the world, where she will quickly perceive that the monopoly 
of happiness is not engrossed by beauty, nor that of virtue by 
genius. 

GOD RULES NATIONS, AND EDUCES GOOD FROM ILL. 

A careful perusal of the historical -and prophetical parts of 
Scripture will prepare us for reading profane history with great 
advantage. In the former we are admitted within the vail ; we 
are informed how the vices of nations drew down on them the 
wrath of the Almighty, and how some neighboring potentate 
was employed as the instrument of divine vengeance ; how his 
ambition, his courage and military skill were but the means of 
fulfilling the divine prediction, or of inflicting the divine punish- 
ment ; how, when the mighty conqueror, the executioner of the 
sentence of Heaven, had performed his assigned task, he was put" 
aside, and was himself, perhaps, in his turn, humbled and laid 
low. Such are the familiar incidents of historic and prophetic 
Scripture. 

Do we then mean to admit that the Almighty approves of these 
excesses in individuals, by which his wisdom often works for the 
general benefit? God forbid! Nothing, surely, could be less 
approved by him than the licentiousness and cruelty of our eighth 
Henry, though he overruled those enormities for the advantage 
of the community, and employed them, as his instruments, for 
restoring good government, and for introducing, and at length 
establishing, the Reformation. England enjoys the inestimable 
blessing, but the monarch is not the less responsible personally 
for his crimes. We are equally certain that God did not approve 
of the insatiable ambition of Alexander, or of his incredible 
acquisition of territory by means of unjust wars. Yet, from that 
ambition, those wars and those conquests, how much may the 
condition of mankind have been meliorated! The natural hu- 
manity of this hero, which he had improved by the study of 
philosophy under one of the greatest masters in the world, dis- 
posed him to turn his conquests to the benefit of mankind. He 
founded seventy cities, says his historian, so situated as to pro- 
mote commerce and diflTuse civilization. Plutarch observes that, 
had those nations not been conquered, Egypt would have had no 
Alexandria, Mesopotamia no Seleucia. He also informs us that 
Alexander introduced marriage into one conquered country, and 
agriculture into another ; that one barbarous nation, which used 



HANNAH MORE. 211 

to eat their parents, was led by him to reverence and maintain 
them ; that he taught the Persians to respect, and not to marry, 
their mothers, — the Scythians to bury, and not to eat, their 
dead. 

To adduce one or two instances more, where thousands might 
be adduced. Did the Almighty a^jprove those frantic wars 
which arrogated to themselves the name of holy f Yet, Avith all 
the extravagance of the enterprise, and the ruinous failure which 
attended its execution, many beneficial consequences, as has been 
already intimated, were permitted, incidentally, to grow out of 
them. The Crusaders, as their historians demonstrate,' beheld 
in their march countries in which civilization had made a greater 
progress than in their own. They saw foreign manufactures in a 
state of improvement to which they had not been accustomed at 
home. They perceived remains of knowledge in the East, of 
which Europe had almost lost sight. Their native prejudices 
were diminished in witnessing improvements to which the state 
of their own country presented comparative barbarity. The first 
faint gleam of light dawned on them, the first perceptions of 
taste and elegance were awakened, and the first rudiments of 
many an art were communicated to them by this personal 
acquaintance with more polished countries. Their views of 
commerce were improved, and their means of extending it were 
enlarged. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that the excess to which the 
popes carried their usurpation, and the Romish clergy their cor- 
ruptions, was, by the providence of God, the immediate cause of 
the Reformation. The taking of Constantinople by the Turks, 
though in itself a most deplorable scene of crimes and calamities, 
became the occasion of most important benefits to other countries, 
by compelling the only accomplished scholars then in the world 
to seek an asylum in the western parts of Europe. To these 
countries they carried wdth them the Greek language, which ere 
long proved one of the providential means of introducing the 
most important event that has occurred since the first establish- 
ment of Christianity. 

If, therefore, God often " educes good from ill," yet man has 
no right to count upon his always doing it in the same degree in 
which he appoints that good shall be productive of good. To 
resume the illustration, therefore, from a few of the instances 
already adduced, — what an extensive blessing might Alexander, 
had he acted with other views and to other ends, have proved to 
that world whose happiness he impaired by his ambition, and 
whose morals he corrupted by his example ! How much more 
efi'ectually and immediately might the Reformation have been 

1 See especially Robertson's State of Europe. 



212 



WILBERFORCE. 



promoted had Henry, laying aside the blindness of prejudice 
and subduing the turbulence of passion, been the zealous and 
consistent supporter of the Protestant cause, the virtuous hus- 
band of one virtuous wife, and the parent of children all educated 
in the sound principles of the Keformation ! Again, had the 
Popes effectually reformed themselves, how might the unity of 
the church have been promoted, and even the schisms which 
have arisen in Protestant communities been diminished ! It 
would be superfluous to recapitulate other instances ; these, it is 
presumed, being abundantly sufficient to obviate any charge of 
the most distant approach towards the fatal doctrine of Necessity. 



WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, 1759-1833. 

This renowned philanthropist was horn at Hull, on the 24th of August, 1759. 
While at school, he gave a remarkable indication of the character by which his 
future life was to be distinguished : — he sent a letter to the editor of the York 
paper, " in condemnation of the odious traffic in human flesh." From school 
he was transferred, at the age of seventeen, to St. John's College, Cambridge, 
of which, in his diary, he gives no very favorable account. On leaving college 
he immediately entered upon active life, being, in 1780, sent by his own town 
of Hull to Parliament, when he had just completed his twenty-first year. He 
soon found his way into the highest circles of fashionable and political society,- 
and in the autumn of 1783 he set out for a tour in France with Mr. Pitt, with 
whom he had formed an acquaintance at Cambridge, — an acquaintance that 
ripened into a friendship that lasted through life. He returned in 1784, and 
in the latter part of the same year he went again on the Continent, accom- 
panied by the celebrated Isaac Milner, Dean of Carlisle. This excursion forms 
a memorable era in his life; since, through the influence of Milner, his early 
impressions of religion, which had been greatly dissipated by his political life, 
were fully revived, and a deep and fervent piety took entire possession of his 
mind and regulated the whole of his future conduct. 

In the year 1787 he entered upon his labors in that great cause with which 
his name will forever be associated, — the Abolition of the Slave-Trade. To 
that holy cause he now dedicated his days and nights, even to his closing 
hours. In the year 1789 he first proposed the abolition of the slave-trade to 
the House of Commons, in "a speech which Burke rewarded with one of those 
imperishable eulogies which he alone had the skill and the authority to pro- 
nounce;^ and the zeal, the patience, the talents, and courage which he dis- 



1 " But a victory over Guinea merchants," 
Bays the Edinburgh Review, "was not to be 
nvimbered among the triumphs of eloquence. 
The slave- tiaders triumphed by an over- 
whelming majority. In the political tumults 
of those days the voice of humanity was no 
longer audible, and common sense ceased to 
discharge its office." The English aboli- 



tionists had much'to contend with; but then 
thej' had a host of good and eloquent and 
learned men on their side. They had Burke 
and Pitt and Fox and Wilberforce and 
Brougliam in Parliament; they had Cowper, 
Montgomery, Coleridge, Campbell, Hann.ih 
More, and many others, in the higher walks 
of literature ; and they had a large number of 



WILBERFORCE. 



213 



played during the many dispiriting delays and formidable difficulties which 
he had to encounter before the cause of justice and humanity finally triumphed, 
are above all praise."^ In 1797 he published his celebrated work on Practical 
Christianity, which met with such remarkable success that not less than five 
editions were called for within the first six months ;2 and it exerted a most 
powerful influence in stemming the tide of irreligion and nominal Christianity. 
In 1807, after twenty years of anxiety and unremitting labor, he had the high 
gratification of seeing the slave-trade abolished by act of Parliament. From 
this time forward, until he quitted the House of Commons, in the year 1825, 
his parliamentary labors were devoted to a ceaseless watchfulness over the in- 
terests of the African race; and he lived to witness the consummation of the 
struggle for the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions. He 
died July 27, 1833, when within a month of completing his seventy-fourth year, 
and was interred in Westminster Abbey, near the tombs of Pitt, Fox, and 
Canning. 

" Few persons," says Lord Brougham, " have ever reached a higher or more 
enviable place in the esteem of their fellow-creatures, or have better deserved 
the place they had gained, than William Wilberforce. His immense influence 
was no doubt greatly owing to the homage paid to his personal character; but 
he possessed many other qualifications which must of themselves have raised 
him to a great eminence." As a public speaker he enjoyed great and well- 
merited celebrity. Sir Samuel Eomilly esteemed him ''the most efficient 
speaker in the House of Commons;" and Pitt himself said repeatedly, '*0f all 
men I ever knew, Wilberforce has the greatest natural eloquence." But of 
what worth is eloquence when not joined to purity of character and enlisted 
in the cause of God and of humanity ? Few think of William Wilberforce as 
an orator; but as a philanthropist his name will be revered by the good in all 
time to come.3 

THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.'^ 

Mr. Speaker : — I cannot but persuade myself that whatever 
difference of opinion there may have been, we shall this day be 



the clergy, especially of the '• dissenters." The 
press, too, was open to them to a great extent. 
Let us, then, never despair of the ultimate 
triumph of truth, however numerous and in- 
fluential they may be who combine to stop its 
onward march! (Written in 1853, eight years 
before the breaking out of the slaveholders' 
great Rebellion.) 

1 Among the letters of encouragement ad- 
dressed to Mr. Wilberforce is one written by 
John Wesley, from his death-bed, dated Feb- 
ruary 24, 1791. As they are probably the last 
written words of that extraordinary man, I 
subjoin them: — 

*' My dear Sir : — Unless Divine Power has 
raised you up to be as Athanasius contra viun- 
dwH, I see not how you can go through your 
glorious enterprise, in opposing that execrable 
villany which is the scandal of religion, of 
England, and of human nature. Unless God 
has raised you up for this very thing, you will 
be worn out by the opposition of men and 
devils; and if God be for you, who can be 
against you ? Are all of them together stronger 
than God? Oh, be not weary of well-doing! 
Go on in the name of God and in the power of 



his might, till even American slavery — the 

VILEST THING THAT EVER SAW THE SUN— shall 

vanish away before it. That He who haa 
guided you from your youth up may continue 
to strengthen you in this and all things, is the 
prayer of, dear sir, your affectionate servant, 
" John Wesley." 

2 It is said that nearly one hundred editions 
have been printed in England; and it has 
been translated into the French, Italian, 
Spanish, and German languages. 

3 Read Recollections, by John L. Hartford, 
Lond. 1864; also his Life, by his sons, in five 
volumes, — one of the most interesting and in- 
structive memoirs ever published. It is deeply 
to be regretted that the American editor and 
publisher have given us such a mutilated edi- 
tion in two volumes, — following the example 
of the American Tract Society by leaving out 
its strongest anti-slavery expressions. (Written 
in 1853.) But— blessed "be God!— all that is now 
(1S66) changed. The great slavemongers' rebel- 
lion has worked a wonderful revolution in the 
sentiments of professing Christians! 

4 From his speech, delivered on the 2d of 
April, 1792. 



214 WILBERFORCE. 

at length unanimous. I cannot believe that a British House of 
Commons will give its sanction to the continuance of this abomi- 
nable traffic, — the African slave-trade. We were for a while 
ignorant of its real nature ; but it has now been completely de- 
veloped and laid open to your view in all its horrors. Never 
was there, indeed, a system so big with wickedness and cruelty : 
it attains to the fullest measure of pure, unmixed, unsophisti- 
cated wickedness ; and, scorning all competition or comparison, 
it stands without a rival in the secure, undisputed possession of 
its detestable pre-eminence. 

But I rejoice, sir, to see that the people of Great Britain have 
stepped forward on this occasion, and expressed their sense more 
generally and unequivocally than in any instance wherein they 
have ever before interfered. I should in vain attempt to express 
to you the satrsfaction with which it has filled my mind to see so 
great and glorious a concurrence, to see this great cause triumph- 
ing over all lesser distinctions, and substituting cordiality and 
harmony in the place of distrust and opposition. Nor have its 
effects among ourselves been in this respect less distinguished or 
less honorable. It has raised the character of Parliament. What- 
ever may have been thought or said concerning the unrestrained 
prevalency of our political divisions, it has taught surrounding 
nations, it has taught our admiring country, that there are sub- 
jects still beyond the reach of party. There is a point of ele- 
vation where we get above the jarring of the discordant ele- 
ments that ruffle and agitate the vale below. In our ordinary 
atmosphere, clouds and vapors obscure the air, and we are the 
sport of a thousand conflicting winds and adverse currents ; but 
here, we move in a higher region, where all is pure, and clear, 
and serene, free from perturbation and discomposure : — 

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm ; 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

Here, then, on this august eminence, let us build the temple 
of benevolence; let us lay its foundation deep in truth and 
justice, and let the inscription on its gates be " peace and good 
will toward men." Here let us offer the first fruit of our pros- 
perity; here let us devote ourselves to the service of these 
wretched men, and go forth burning with a generous ardor to 
compensate, if possible, for the injuries we have hitherto brought 
on them. Let us heal the breaches we have made. Let us 
rejoice in becoming the happy instruments of arresting the pro- 
gress of rapine and desolation, and of introducing into that im- 
mense country the blessings of Christianity, the comforts of civil- 
ized, and the sweets of social life. I am persuaded, sir, there is 



WILBERFORCE. 215 

no man who hears me, who would not join with me in hailing 
the arrival of this happy period, — who does not feel his mind 
cheered and solaced by the contemplation of these delightful 
scenes.^ 

THE HOPE FOR OUR COUNTRY. 

My only solid hope for the well-being of my country depends 
not so much on her fleets and armies, not so much on the wisdom 
of her rulers or the spirit of her people, as on a persuasion that 
she still contains many who, in a degenerate age, love and obey 
the gospel of Christ; — on the humble trust that the intercession 
of these may still be prevalent ; and that, for the sake of these, 
Heaven may still look upon us with an eye of favor. 

THE SUPPORTS OF RELIGION.'^ 

When the pulse beats high, and we are flushed with youth and 
health and vigor, when all goes on prosperously, and success 
seems almost to anticipate our wishes, then we feel not the want 
of the consolations of religion ; but when fortune frowns, or 
friends forsake us, when sorrow, or sickness, or old age comes 
upon us, then it is that the superiority of the pleasures of religion 
is established over those of dissipation and vanity, which are 
ever apt to fly from us when we are most in want of their aid. 
There is scarcely a more melancholy sight to a considerate mind 
than that of an old man who is a stranger to those only true 
sources of satisfaction. How affecting, and at the same time 
how disgusting, is it to see such a one awkwardly catching at the 
pleasures of his younger years, which are now beyond his reach, 
or feebly attempting to retain them, while they mock his en- 
deavors and elude his grasp ! To such a one gloomily, indeed, 
does the evening of life set in ! All is sour and cheerless. He 
can neither look backward with complacency, nor forward with 
hope; while the aged Christian, relying on the assured mercy 
of his Redeemer, can calmly reflect that his dismission is at 
hand, that his redemption draweth nigh. While his strength 



1 On the final triumph of the bill for abolish- 
ing the Slave-Trade, the vote was 283 to 16. 
Several comrades went home with Wilberforce 
after the house was up. " Well, Henry," said 
he to his friend Thornton, " what sliall we 
abolish next?" "The lottery, I think," was 
the answer. William Smith said, " Let us 
make out the names of these sixteen mis- 
creants. I have four of them." " Never 
mind," said Wilberforce, who was kneeling on 
one knee at the table, writing a note, and 
]<ii iking up as he spoke; "never mind the 
miserable sixteen : let us think of our glorious 
tv'O hundred and dghly-thrce." As for him- 
self, all selfish triumph was lost in unfeigned 



griititude to God. " How wonderfully," he 
writes in his Journal of March 22, 1807, "the 
providence of God has been manifested in the 
Abolition Bill ! Oh, what thanks do I owe the 
Giver of all good for bringing me in his gra- 
cious providence to this great cause, which at 
length, after almost nineteen years' labor, is 
successful !" 

2 " Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort 
to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and 
sometimes a restraint upon the wicked : who- 
ever, therefore, wants to argue or laugh it out 
of the world, without giving an equivalent for 
it, ought to be treated as a common enemy."— 
Lady M. W. Montagu. 



216 COLERIDGE. 

declines, and his faculties decay, he can quietly repose himself 
on the fidelity of God ; and at the very entrance of the valley 
of the shadow of death, he can lift up an eye, dim perhaps and 
feeble, yet occasionally sparkling with hope, and confidently 
looking forward to the near possession of his heavenly inherit- 
ance, "to those joys which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man." What striking 
lessons h^ve we had of the precarious tenure of all sublunary 
possessions! Wealth, and power, and prosperity, how peculiarly 
transitory and uncertain! But religion dispenses her choicest 
cordials in the seasons of exigence, in poverty, in exile, in sickness, 
and in death. The essential superiority of that support which is 
derived from religion is less felt, at least it is less apparent, 
when the Christian is in full possession of riches, and splendor, 
and rank, and all the gifts of nature and fortune. But when 
all these are swept away by the rude hand of time or the rough 
blasts of adversity, the true Christian stands, like the glory of the 
forest, erect and vigorous ; stripped, indeed, of his summer foliage, 
but more than ever discovering to the observing eye the solid 
strength of his substantial texture. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 1772-1834. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "the most imaginative of modern poets," was 
the son of the Eev. John Coleridge, vicar of Ottery, and was born at that place 
in the year 1772. Losing his father in early life, he obtained, by the kind- 
ness of a friend, a presentation to Christ Church Hospital, London. "I 
enjoyed," he says,^ "the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at 
the same time a very severe, master, the Rev. James Bowyer, who early 
moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and 
Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid, &c." He made extra- 
ordinary advances in scholarship, and amassed a vast variety of miscellaneous 
knowledge, but in that random, desultory manner which through life pre- 
vented him from accomplishing what his great abilities qualified him for 
achieving. His reputation at Christ Church promised a brilliant career at 
Cambridge, which university he entered in 1790, in his nineteenth year. In 
1794 he became acquainted with the poet Southey, then a student at Baliol 
College, Oxford, and a warm friendship soon ripened between them; and at 
Bristol they formed the resolution, along with a third poet, Lovell, of found- 
ing what they termed a Pantisocracy, or a republic of pure freedom, on the 
banks of the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania. In 1795 the three poets married 
three sisters, the Misses Fricker, of Bristol ; and thus the whole pantisocratic 
scheme was upset.^ 

1 Biographia Literaria. I patibility of temper and disposition; for Mrs. 

2 Coleridge's union with Sarah Fricker was Coleridge was wanting in all cordial adinira- 
not a happy union, on account of simple incom- ] tion or, indeed, comprehension of her hus- 



COLERIDGE. 



217 



After his marriage, Coleridge settled at Clevedon, near Bristol, and projected 
many plans of industrious occupation in the fields of literature; but he soon 
became tired of this retreat, and removed to Bristol, where he was materially- 
aided in his designs of publication by that very generous and sympathizing 
publisher, Joseph Cottle. He first started a weekly political paper, called the 
Watchman, most of which he wrote himself; but, from his indolent irregularity, 
the work stopped at the tenth number. Failing in this, he retired, in the 
latter part of 1796, to a cottage in Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, on the 
grounds of his friend and benefactor, Mr. Poole, and near Mr. Wordsworth. 
He was at this time in the habit of contributing verses to one of the London 
papers, as a means of subsistence; and it was while residing here that the 
greater part of his poems Avere composed, though many were not published 
till later: these were his Lyrical Ballads, Christahel, the Ancient Mariner, and 
his tragedy of Remorse. 

In 1798 he was enabled, through the munificence of Mr. Thomas Wedge- 
wood, to travel in Germany and to study at some of its famed universities. 
He was very industrious in the study of the literature and philosophy of that 
country, and may be considered as the introducer of German philosophy to 
the notice of British scholars. After his return from Germany, Coleridge 
settled with his family at Keswick, in Cumberland, near the "lakes," in 
which region Wordsworth and Southey resided; and hence the appellation 
of " Lake Poets," given to these three individuals. In the mean time, his 
habit of opium-eating, into which he had been seduced from its apparent 
medicinal effects, had gained tremendously upon him, and had undermined 
his health. There is no portion of literary history more sad than that which 
reveals the tyrannical power which that dreadful habit had over him, and his 
repeated but vain struggles to overcome it. It made him its victim, and held 
him, bound hand and foot, with a giant's strength. ^ In consequence of his 
enfeebled health, he went to Malta in 1804, and returned in 1806.2 From 
this period till about 1816 he led a sort of wandering life, sometimes with one 
friend and sometimes with another, and much of the time separated from his 
family, supporting himself by lecturing, publishing, and writing for the Lon- 
don papers. The great defect in his character was the want of resoluteness 
of will. He saw that his pernicious habit was destroying his own happiness 
and that of those dearest to him; entangling him in meanness, deceit, and dis- 
honesty; and yet he had not the strength of will to break it ofF.3 

In 1816 he placed himself under the care of Mr. Gilman, a physician in 
Highgate, London, and with his generous family he resided till his death. 



band's intellectual powers. De Quincey, in his 
Literary Reminiscences, ihns speaks: — "Cole- 
ridge assured me that his marriage was not 
his own deliberate act, but was in a manner 
forced upon his sense of honor by the scrupu- 
lous Southey, who insisted he had gone too 
far in his attentions to Miss F. for any honor- 
able retreat." 

1 Read the paitifully interesting account in 
Cottle's Reminiscences, and the most faithful 
Christian letter of Cottle to Coleridge, together 
with the answer of the latter. Read, also, an 
able article in the North British Reiu'eto, De- 
cember, 1S65. gee, too, some fine remarks on 
Coleridge by Talfourd, in his edition of Lamb's 
Works, vol. i. p. 274. 



2 " It was in the year 1807 that I first saw 
this illustrious man, the largest and most spa- 
cious intellect, the subtlest and most compre- 
hensive, in ray judgment, that has yet existed 
amongst men." — De Quincey. 

3 " The fine saying of Addison is familiar to 
most readers, — that Babylon in ruins is not so 
affecting a spectacle, or so solemn, as a human 
mind overthrown by lunacy. How miich more 
awful, then, and more magnificent a wreck, 
when a mind so regal as that of Coleridge is 
overthrown or threatened with overthrow, not 
by a visitation of Providence, but by the 
treachery of his own will, and the conspiracy, 
as it were, of himself against himself!" — De 
Quincey. 



19 



218 COLERIDGE. 

Most of his prose works he published between the years 1817 and 1825, — the 
two Lay Sermons, the Biographia Literaria, the Friend, in three volumes, the 
Aids to Reflection, and the Constitution of the Church and State. After his death, 
which took place on the 25th of July, 1834, collections were made of his Table- 
'Talk, and other Literary Reviains.^ 

Few men have exerted a greater influence upon the thinking mind of the 
nineteenth century than Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whether we regard his 
poetry or his prose writings. He wrote^ however, for the scholastic few rather 
than for the reading many. Hence he has never become what may be called 
a popular writer, and never will be. But if he exerted not so great an in- 
fluence upon the popular mind directly, he did indirectly through those who 
have studied and admired his works, and have themselves popularized his 
own recondite conceptions. His Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly 
Character is a book full of wisdom, of sound Christian morality, and of the 
most just observations on life and duty; and from his series of essays, The 
Friend, might be culled gems of rich and beautiful and profound thought 
that would make a volume of priceless worth. His poetry unites great vivid- 
ness of fancy to a lofty elevation of moral feeling and unsurpassed melody 
of versification; but then much of it must be said to be obscure. He himself, 
in fact, admits this, when he says, in a later edition of one of his poems, that 
where he appears unintelligible '"the deficiency is in the reader."^ Still, 
enough that is clear remains to delight, instruct, and exalt the mind; and few 
authors have left to the world, both in prose and poetry, so much delicious 
and invigorating food on whiqh the worn spirit may feed with pleasure and 
profit, and gain renewed strength for the conflicts of the world, as this philo- 
sophic poet and poetic philosopher.^ 

In conversation, Coleridge particularly shone. Here, probably, he never 
had his equal : so that he gained the title of the " Great Conversationalist." 
"It is deeply to be regretted," says an admiring critic, " that his noble genius 
was, to a great extent, frittered away in conversation, which he could pour 
forth, unpremeditatedly, for hours, in uninterrupted streams of vivid, dazzling, 
original thinking." "Did you ever hear me preach?" said Coleridge to Lamb. 
"I never heard you do any thing else," was his friend's reply. Certainly 
through this medium he watered with his instructions a large circle of disci- 



1 A few months before liis death, Mr. Coleridge wrote his own humble and affecting 
epitaph :— 

Stop, Christian passer-by ! Stop, child of God, 
And read with gentle breast. Beneatli this sod 
A poet lies, or that which once seeni'd he; — 
Oh, lift a tliought and prayer for S. T. C! 
That he, who many a year with toil of breath 
Found death in life, may here find life in death ! 
Mercy for praise, to be forgiven for fame. 
He ask'd, and hoped in Christ. Do thou the same. 

■-J In reference to that singularly wild and I to have written the following epigram, ad- 
striking poem, The Ancient Mariner, he is said | dressed to himself: 

" Your poem must eternal be, ^^ 

Dear sir ! it cannot fail ! 
For 'tis incomprehensible. 
And without head or tail." 

8 "I think, with all his faults, old Sam was I philosophy and poetry with so full a know- 
more of a great man than any one who has ledge, in so many points at least, of particular 
lived within the four seas, in my memory. It J facts."— Arnold : Letter to W. W. Hull, Esq. 
is refreshing to see such a union of the highest ] 



COLERIDGE. 219 



neas 



pleship; but what treasures of thought has the worhl lost by his unwilling 
to make his pen the mouth-piece of his mindli 

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. 

[Besides the rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Bhinc, 
five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides: and within a few paces of the ghiciers the Gcn- 
tiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."] 

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star 
In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause 
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc ! 
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base. 
Eave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form ! 
Kisest from forth thy silent sea of pines, 
How silently ! Around thee and above 
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black, 
An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it. 
As with a wedge ! But when I look again. 
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, 
Thy habitation from eternity ! 

dread and silent mount ! I gazed upon thee, 
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 

Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer, 

1 worshipp'd the Invisible alone. 

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, 
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it. 
Thou tlie meanwhile wast blending with my thoughts. 
Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy, 
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, 
Into the mighty vision passing, — there. 
As in her natural form, swell'd vast to heaven. 

Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise 
Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears, 
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy ! Awake, 
A^oice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! 
Green vales and icy clifis, all join my hynm. 

Thou first and chief, sole Sovran of the Yale ! 
Oh, struggling with the dai'kness all the night. 
And visited all night by troops of stars, 
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink : 



1 The following is the testimony of Dr. Dib- 
din to Coleridge's conversational powers: "T 
shall never forget the effect his conversation 
made upon me at the first meeting, at a dinner- 
party. It struck me as something not only 
quite out of the ordinary course of things, but 
an intellectual exhibition altogether match- 
less. The viands were unusually costly, and 
the banquet was at once rich and varied ; but 
there seemed to be no dish like Coleridge's 
conversation to feed upon, and no informa- 



pious and eloquent periods did it flow! The 
auditors seemed to be wrapt in wonder and de- 
light, as one conversation, more profound or 
clothed in more forcible language than an- 
other, fell from his tongue. He spoke nearly 
for two hours with unhesitating and uninter- 
rupted fluency. As I returned homeward to 
Kensington, 1 thought a second .Johnson had 
visited the earth to make wise the sons of men ; 
and regretted that I could not exercise the 
powers of a second Boswell to record the wis- 



tion so instructive as his own. The orator ! dom and the eloquence that fell from the ora- 
rolled himself up, as it were, in his chair, and \ tor's lips."' 

gave the most unrestrained indulgence to his j Read Edinhnrgh Review, xxvii. 58, xxviii. 
speech: and how fraught with acuteness and i 418; Ixi. 129; London Quarterly, xi. 173, lii. 1, 
originality was that speech, and in what co- i liii. 79, lix. 1; and American Quarterly, xix. 1. 



220 COLERIDGE. 

Companion of the morning star at dawn, 
Thyself earth's ROSY star/ and of the dawn 
Co-herald ! wake, oh, wake, and ntter praise ! 
Who sank thy -sunless pillars deep in earth? 
Who fiU'd thy countenance with rosy light? 
Who made thee jaarent of perpetual streams? 

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! 
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death, 
From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth, 
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, 
Forever shatter'd, and the same forever? 
Who gave you your invulnerable life, 
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, 
Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam? 
And who commanded (and the silence came), 
'' Here let the billows stiffen and have rest ?" 

Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
Adown enormous ravines slope amain, — 
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, 
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge! 
Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! 
W^ho made you glorious as the gates of heaven 
Beneath the keen full moon "^ Who bade the sun 
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers 
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ! 
God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! 
God! sing, ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! 
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! 
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! 

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! 
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! 
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm! 
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! 
Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! 
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! 

Thou too, hoar Mount ! with thy sky-pointing peaks 
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, 
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, 
Into the depth of clouds that vail thy breast, — 
Thou too, again, stupendous mountain ! thou, 
That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low 
In adoration, upward from thy base 
Slow-travelling with dim eyes suflused with tears. 
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud. 
To rise before me, — rise, oh, ever rise, 
Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth ! 
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills. 



1 The slaciers assiime iu the sunshine all manner of colors. 



COLERIDGE. 221 

Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, 
Great hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky, 
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.^ 

QUALITIES ESSENTIAL TO THE TEACHER. 

O'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule. 
And sun thee in the light of happy faces ; 
Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces, 
And in thine own heart let them first keep school. 
For as old Atlas on his broad neck places 
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it, so 
Do these upbear the little world below 
Of education, — Patience, Love, and Hope. 
Methinks I see them group'd in seemly show, 
The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope, 
And robes that touching as adown they flow, 
Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow. 
Oh, part them never! If Plope prostrate lie, 

Love, too, will sink and die. 
But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive 
From her own life that Plope is yet alive ; 
And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes, 
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, 
Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies ; 
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. 
Yet haply there will come a weary day. 

When, overtask'd at length, 
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way ; 
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength, 
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loath, 
And, both supporting, does the work of both. 

TO AN INFANT. 

Ah, cease thy tears and sobs, my little life ! 
I did but snatch away the unclasp'd knife : 
Some safer toy will soon arrest thine eye. 
And to quick laughter change this peevish cry. 
Poor stumbler on the rocky coast of avo, 
Tutor'd by pain each source of pain to know ! 
Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire 
Awake thy eager grasp and young desire : 
Alike the good, the ill offend thy sight. 
And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright! 
Untaught, yet wise, 'mid all thy brief alarms 
Thou closely clingest to thy mother's arms. 
Nestling thy little face in that fond breast 
Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest ! 



J "The structure of tliif hymn if? extremely 
noble; it commences and coiicliules with the 
idea of the mount iu its oneness, while the 
mind is allowed iu its intei-veuing strains to 



mingle with the individualities of its scenery: 
it constitutes a picture as unique in its gran- 
deur as any that poetry presents." — Scrym- 

GEOUR. 



19* 



222 COLERIDGE. 

Man's breathing miniature ! thou mak'st me sigh, — 

A babe art thou, — and such a thing am I ! 

To anger raj^id, and as soon appeased, — 

For trifles mourning, and by trifles pleased, — 

Break friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow, 

Yet snatch what coals of fire on pleasure's altar glow ! 

O Thou that rearest, with celestial aim. 

The future seraph in my mortal frame, 

Thrice holy faith ! whatever thorns I meet, 

As on I totter with unj^ractised feet. 

Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee, 

Meek nurse of souls through their long infancy ! 



YOUTH AND AGE. 

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying 
Where Hope clung feeding like a bee, — 
Both Avere mine ! Life went a-maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 

When 1 was young ! 
When I was young f Ah, woful when! 
Ah, for the change 'twixt now and then ! 
This breathing house not built with hands, 
This body that does me grievous wrong, 
O'er airy cliffs and glittering sands, 
How lightly then it flash'd along ! — 
Like those trim skiffs, unknoAvn of yore 
On winding lakes and rivers wide, 
That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
That fear no spite of wind or tide, — 
Naught cared this body for wind or weather, 
When youth and I lived in't together. 

Flowers ai'e lovely ; Love is flower-like ; 
Friendship is a sheltering tree ; 
Oh, the jovs that came down shower-like, 
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 

Ere I was old ! 
Ere I was old f Ah, woful ere ! 
Which tells me Youth's no longer here ! 

Youth ! for years so many and sweet, 
'Tis known that thou and I were one ; 
I'll think it but a fond conceit, — 

It cannot be that thou art gone ; 
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd. 
And thou wert aye a masquer bold ; 
What strange disguise hast now put on. 
To make believe that thou art gone ? 

1 see these locks in silvery slips, 
This drooping gait, this alter'd size ; 
But spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, 
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes ! 
Life is but thought ; so think I will 
That Youth and I are housemates still. 



COLERIDGE. 223 

REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT. 

Low was our pretty cot ; our tallest rose 
Peep'd at the chamber- window. We could hear 
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn, 
The sea's faint murmur. In the open air 
Our myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch 
Thick Jasmins twined ; the little landscape round 
Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye. 
It was a spot which you might aptly call 
The Valley of Seclusion ! Once I saw 
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) 
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by, 
Bristowa's citizen : methought it calm'd 
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse 
With wiser feelings : for he paused and look'd 
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around, 
Then eyed our cottage and gazed round again, 
And sigh'd, and said it was a blessed place, 
And we were bless'd. 

Ah, quiet dell ! dear cot ! and mount sublime ! 
I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right, 
While my unnuraber'd brethren toil'd and bled, 
That I should dream away the intrusted hours 
On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart 
With feelings all too delicate for use ? 
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye 
Drops on the cheek of one he lifts fi'om earth : 
And he that works me good with unmoved face 
Does it but half; he chills me while he aids ; 
My benefactor, not my brother man. 
Yet even this, this cold beneficence, 
Praise, praise it, O my soul ! oft as thou scann'st 
The Sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe ! 
Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, 
Nursing in some delicious solitude 
Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies ; 
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand, 
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight 
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ. 

Yet oft when, after honorable toil. 
Pests the tired mind, and, waking, loves to dream, 
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear cot ! 
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose, 
And myrtles, fearless of the mild sea-air. 
And I shall sigh fond wishes, — sweet abode ! 
Ah, had none greater ! And that all had such ! 
It might be so, — but the time is not yet. 
Speed' it, O Father ! Let thy kingdom come ! 

IMPORTANCE OF THE CORRECT USE OF TERMS. 

Felicity, in its proper sense, is but another word for fortunate- 
ness, or happiness ; and I can see no advantage in the improper 
use of words when proper terms are to be found, but, on the con- 



224 COLERIDGE. 

trary, mucli mischief; for, by familiarizing the mind to equivocal 
expressions, — that is, such as may be taken in two or more dif- 
ferent meanings, — we introduce confusion of thought, and furnish 
the sophist with his best and handiest tools. For the juggle of 
sophistry consists, for the greater part, in using a word in one 
sense in the premise, and in another sense in the conclusion. We 
should accustom ourselves to think and reason in precise and 
steadfast terms, even when custom, or the deficiency or the cor- 
ruption of the language, will not permit the same strictness in 
speaking. The mathematician finds this so necessary to the 
truths which he is seeking, that his science begins with and is 
founded on the definition of his terms. The botanist, the chemist, 
the anatomist, &c. feel and submit to this necessity at all costs, 
even at the risk of exposing their several pursuits to the ridicule 
of the many, by technical terms, hard to be remembered and 
alike quarrelsome to the ear and the tongue. In the business of 
moral and religious reflection, in the acquisition of clear and 
distinct conceptions of our duties and of the relations in which 
we stand to God, our neighbor, and ourselves, no such difiiculties 
occur. At the utmost we have only to rescue words, already 
existing and familiar, from the false or vague meanings imposed 
on them by carelessness, or by the clipping and debasing mis- 
usage of the market. And surely happiness, duty, faith, truth, 
and final blessedness are matters of deeper and dearer interest 
for all men than circles to the geometrician, or the characters of 
plants to the botanist, or the afiinities and combining principle 
of the elements of bodies to the chemist, or even than the mecha- 
nism (fearful and wonderful though it be !) of the perishable 
Tabernacle of the Soul can be to the anatomist. Among the 
aids to reflection, place the following maxim prominent: Let 
distinctness in expression advance side by side wdth distinction 
in thought. For one useless subtlety in our elder divines and 
moralists, I will produce ten sophisms of equivocation in the 
writings of our modern preceptors ; and for one error resulting 
from excess in distinguishing the indiflerent, I would show ten 
mischievous delusions from the habit of confounding the diverse. 

Aids to Reflection. 

QUALITIES NECESSARY FOR A GOOD STYLE. 

In order to form a good style, the primary rule and condition 
is, not to attempt to express ourselves in language before we 
thoroughly know our own meaning : w^hen a man perfectly 
understands himself, appropriate diction will generally be at his 
command, either in speaking or writing. In such cases the 
thoughts and the words are associated. In the next place, pre- 
ciseness in the use of terms is required, and the test is whether 



COLERIDGE. 225 

you can translate the phrase adequately into simpler terms, re- 
gard being had to the feeling of the Avhole passage. Try this 
upon Shakspeare or Milton, and see if you can substitute other 
simpler words in any given passage without a violation of the 
meaning or tone. The source of bad writing is the desire to be 
something more than a man of sense, — the straining to be thought 
a genius; and it is just the same in speech-making. If men 
would only say what they have to say in plain terms, how much 
more eloquent they would be! Another rule is, to avoid con- 
verting mere abstractions into persons. You will very rarely 
find in any great writer before the Revolution the possessive case 
of an inanimate noun used in prose instead of the dependent case; 
as, " the watch's hand" for " the hand of the watch." The pos- 
sessive or Saxon genitive was confined to persons, or at least to 
animated subjects ; and I cannot conclude without insisting on 
the importance of accuracy of style, as being near akin to vera- 
city and truthful habits of mind : he who thinks loosely wuU 
write loosely ; and perhaps there is some moral inconvenience in 
the common forms of our grammars, wdiich give children so many 
obscure terms for material distinctions. Let me also exhort you 
to careful examination of what you read, if it be worth any 
perusal at all ; such examination will be a safeguard from fana- 
ticism, the universal origin of which is in the contemplation of 
phenomena without investigation into their causes. 

Literary Remains, 

ADVANTAGES OF 31ETH0D. 

What is that which first strikes us, and strikes us at once, in a 
man of education, and which, among educated men, so instantly 
distinguishes the man of superior mind, that (as was observed 
with eminent propriety of the late Edmund Burke) " we cannot 
stand under the same archway during a showier of rain without 
finding him out" ? Not the weight or novelty of his remarks ; 
not any unusual interest of facts communicated by him ; for we 
may suppose both the one and the other precluded by the short- 
ness of our intercourse and the triviality of the subjects. The 
difference will be impressed and felt though the conversation 
should be confined to the state of the weather or the pavement. 
Still less w^ill it arise from any peculiarity in his w^ords and 
phrases ; for if he be, as we now assume, a li^e/Z-educated man as 
well as a man of superior powers, he ^\i\\ not fail to follow the 
golden rule of Julius C?esar, and, unless where new things neces- 
sitate new terms, he will avoid an unusual word as a rock. It 
must have been among the earliest lessons of his youth that the 
breach of this precept — at all times hazardous — becomes ridicu- 
lous in the topics of ordinary conversation. There remains but 



22G COLERIDGE. 

one other point of distinction possible ; and this must be, and, in 
fact, is, the true cause of the impression made on us. It is the 
unpremeditated and evidently habitual arrangement of his words, 
grounded on the habit of foreseeing, in each integral part, or 
(more plainly) in every sentence, the whole that he then intends 
to communicate. However irregular and desultory his talk, 
there is method in the fragments. * * * 

It would indeed be superfluous to attempt a proof of its im- 
portance in the business and economy of active or domestic life. 
From the cotter's hearth or the workshop of the artisan, to the 
palace or the arsenal, the first merit, that which admits neither 
substitute nor equivalent, is that every thing is in its place. 
Where this charm is wanting, every other merit either loses its 
name or becomes an additional ground of accusation and regret. 
Of one by whom it is eminently possessed we say proverbially he 
is like clockwork. The resemblance extends beyond the point 
of regularity, and yet falls short of the truth. Both do, indeed, 
at once divide and announce the silent and otherwise indistin- 
guishable lapse of time. But the man of methodical industry 
and honorable pursuits does more : he realizes its id6al divisions 
and gives a character and individuality to its moments. If the 
idle are described as killing time, he may be justly said to call it 
into life and moral being, while he makes it the distinct object 
not only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He organizes 
the hours and gives them a soul ; and that, the v.ery essence of 
which is to fleet away and evermore to have been, he takes up 
into his own permanence and communicates to it the imperish- 
ableness of a spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful servant 
whose energies, thus directed, are thus methodized, it is less truly 
affirmed that he lives in time, than that time lives in him. His 
days, months, and years, as the stops and punctual marks in the 
records of duties performed, will survive the wreck of worlds and 
remain extant when time itself shall be no more. 



TRUTH MUST AND WILL PREVAIL. 

Monsters and madmen canonized, and Galileo blind in a dun- 
geon ! It is not so in our times. Heaven be praised, that in this 
respect at least we are, if not better, yet better of than our fore- 
fathers! But to what and to whom (under Providence) do we 
owe the improvement? To any radical change in the moral 
aflJectlons of mankind in general ? In order to answer this ques- 
tion in the aflirmative, I must forget the infamous empirics 
whose advertisements pollute and disgrace all our newspapers 
and almost paper the walls of our cities, and the vending of 
whose poisons and poisonous drams (with shame and anguish be 
it spoken !) supports a shop in every market-town. I must forget 



COLERIDGE. 227 

that other opprobrium of the nation, — that mother-vice, the lot- 
tery. I must forget that a numerous class plead prudence for 
keeping their fellow-men ignorant and incapable of intellectual 
enjoyments, and the revenue for upholding such temptations as 
men so ignorant will not withstand, — yes ! that even senators 
and officers of state hold forth the revenue as a sufficient plea for 
upholding, at every fiftieth door throughout the kingdom, tempta- 
tions to the most pernicious vices. * * * ]^o ! Let us not 
deceive ourselves. Like the man who used to pull off his hat 
with great demonstration of respect Avhenever he spoke of him- 
self, Ave are fond of styling our own the enUghtened age, though, 
as Jortin, I think, has wittily remarked, the golden age would be 
more appropriate. 

To whom, then, do we OAve our ameliorated condition ? To the 
successive fcAV in every age (more, indeed, in one generation than 
in another, but relatively to the mass of mankind ahvays fcAv) 
who, by the intensity and permanence of their action, have com- 
pensated for the limited sphere Avithin Avhich it is at any one 
time intelligible, and Avhose good deeds posterity reverence in 
their results, though the mode in Avhich Ave repair the inevitable 
waste of time, and the style of our additions, too generally fur- 
nish a sad proof hoAV little Ave understand the principles. 

Still, hoAvever, there are truths so self-evident, or so imme- 
diately and palpably deduced from those that are, or are acknoAV- 
ledged for such, that they are at once intelligible to all men Avho 
possess the common advantages of the social state ; although, by 
sophistry, by evil habits, by the neglect, false persuasions, and 
impostures of an anti-Christian priesthood, joined in one con- 
sjDiracy -with the violence of tyrannical governors, the under- 
standings of men may become so darkened, and their consciences 
so lethargic, that there may arise a necessity for the republica- 
tion of these truths, and this, too, Avith a voice of loud alarm and 
impassioned Avarning. Such were the doctrines proclaimed by 
the first Christians to the pagan Avorld ; such were the lightnings 
flashed by Wicklif, Huss, Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Latimer, 
and others, across the papal darkness ; and such, in our own 
^ times, the agitating truths Avith which Thomas Clarkson and his 
excellent confederates, the Quakers, fought and conquered the 
legalized banditti of men-stealers, the numerous and poAverful 
perpetrators and advocates of rapine, murder, and (0/ blacker 
guilt than either^ slavery. Truths of this kind being indis- 
pensable to man, considered as a moral being, are above all ex- 
pedience, all accidental consequences ; for, as sure as God is holy 
and man immortal, there can be no CAdl so great as the ignorance 
or disregard of them. It is the very madness of mock prudence 
to oppose the removal of a poisoned dish on account of the plea- 
sant sauces or nutritious viands Avhich Avould be lost Avith it. 



228 COLERIDGE. 

The dish contains destruction to that for which alone we ought 
to Avish the palate to be gratified or the body to be nourished. 

The prejudices of one age are condemned even by the pre- 
judiced of the succeeding ages: for endless are the modes of 
folly, and the fool joins with the wise in j)assing sentence on all 
modes but his OAvn. Who cried out with greater horror against 
the murderers of the prophets than those who likewise cried out, 
— Crucify him ! crucify him ! The truth-haters of every future 
generation will call the truth-haters of the preceding ages by 
their true names; for even these the stream of time carries 
ouAvard. In fine, truth, considered in itself and in the effects 
natural to it, may be conceived as a gentle spring or water- 
source, Avarm from the genial earth, and breathing up into the 
snoAA'drift that is piled over and around its outlet. It turns the 
obstacle into its OAvn form and character, and, as it makes its 
way, increases its stream. And should it be arrested in its 
course by a chilling season, it suffers delay, not loss, and aAvaits 
only for a change in the Avind to aAvaken and again roll onward. 
—The Friend. 

DUTY. 

There are many able and patriotic members in the House of 
Commons, — Sir Robert Inglis, Sir Robert Peel, and some others. 
But I gricA'e that they ncA^er have the courage or the wisdom — I 
knoAV not in Avliich the failure is — to take their stand upon duty, 
and to appeal to all men as men: to the Good and the True, 
which exists for all, and of Avhich all have an apprehension. 
They ahvays set to AA^ork — especially, his great eminence con- 
sidered. Sir Robert Peel — by addressing themselves to individual 
interests : the measure Avill be injurious to the linen-drapers or to 
the bricklayers ; or this clause Avill bear hard on bobbin-net or 
poplins; and so forth. AVhereas their adversaries — the dema- 
gogues — always Avork on the opposite principle: they ahvays 
appeal to men as men ; and, as you knoAV, the most terrible con- 
vulsions in society have been Avrought by such phrases as Rights 
of Man, Sovereignty of the People, which no one understands, Avhich 
apply to no one in particular, but to all in general. * * * 

Consistent truth and goodness Avill assuredly in the end over- 
come every thing ; but inconsistent good can never be a match 
for consistent evil. Alas! I look in vain for some Avise and 
vigorous man to sound the Avord Duty in the ears of this gene- 
ration. 

HYPOCRITICAL EXA3IPLE. 

The duty of setting a good example is no doubt a most im- 
portant duty ; but the example is good or bad, necessary or un- 



COLERIDGE. 229 

necessary, according as the action may be, which has a chance 
of being imitated. I once knew a small but (in outward cir- 
cumstances at least) respectable congregation, four-fifths of whom 
professed that they went to church entirely for the example's 
sake ; in other words, to cheat each other and act a common lie ! 
These rational Christians had not considered, that example may 
increase the good or evil of an action, but can never constitute 
either. If it was a foolish thing to kneel when they were not 
1 inwardly praying, or to listen to a discourse of which they 
I believed little and cared nothing, they were setting a foolish 
example. Persons in their respectable circumstances do not think 
it necessary to clean shoes, that by their example they may 
encourage the shoe-black in continuing his occupation: and 
Christianity does not think so meanly of herself as to fear that 
the poor and afflicted will be a whit less pious, though they 
should see reason to believe that those who possessed the good 
things of the present life were determined to leave all the 
^blessings of the future for their more humble inferiors. If I 
have spoken with bitterness, let it be recollected that my subject 
is hypocrisy. 

BOOKS OF 31 OSES. 

One striking proof of the genuineness of the Mosaic books is 
this : — they contain precise prohibitions — by way of predicting 
the consequences of disobedience — of all those things which 
David and Solomon actually did, and gloried in doing, — raising 
cavalry, making a treaty vv'ith Egypt, laying up treasure, and 
polygamizing. Now, would such prohibitions have been fabri- 
cated in those kings' reigns, or afterwards? Impossible! The 
manner of the predictions of Moses is very remarkable. He is 
like a man standing on an eminence and addressing people beloAV 
him, and pointing to things which he can, and they cannot, see. 
He does not say. You will act in such and such a way, and the 
consequences will be so and so ; but, So and so will take place, 
because you will act in such a way ! 

MILTON. 

In Milton's mind itself there were purity and piety absolute ; 
an imagination to Avhich neither the past nor the present were 
interesting, except as far as they called forth and enlivened the 
great ideal in which and for w^hich he lived ; a keen love of 
truth, which, after many weary pursuits, found a harbor in the 
sublime listening to the still voice in his own spirit, and as keen 
a love of his country, which, after a disappointment still more 
depressive, expanded and soared into a love of man as a pro- 
bationer of immortality. These were, these alone could be, the 

20 



230 IRVING. 

conditions under which such a work as the Paradise Lost could 
be conceived and accomplished. By a life-long study Milton 
had known 

" What is of use to know, 
What best to say could say, to do had done. 
His actions to his words agreed, his words 
To his large heart gave utterance due ; his heart 
Contain'd of good, wise, just, the perfect shape;" — 

and he left the imperishable total, as a bequest to the ages coming, 
in the Paradise Lost. — Literary Peynains. 

EFFECTS OF NOVEL-READING. 

It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be 
• called into effort; the habit of receiving pleasure without any 
exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity and 
sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of 
habitual novel-reading. Those who confine their reading to such 
books dwarf their own faculties, and finally reduce their under- 
standings to a deplorable imbecility. Like idle morning visitors, 
the brisk and breathless periods hurry in and hurry oft' in quick 
and profitless succession ; each, indeed, for the moments of its 
stay, prevents the pain of vacancy, while it indulges the love of 
sloth ; but all together they leave the mistress of the house (the 
soul, I mean) flat and exhausted, incapable of attending to her 
own concerns, and unfitted for the conversation of more rational 
guests. 



EDWARD IRVING, 17 92-183 J^. 

This celebrated preacher was born at Annan, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, 
and educated at the University of Edinburgh. After finishing his theological 
course of studies, he officiated in various churches, until he was recommended 
to the notice of Dr. Chalmers, who engaged him as his assistant in St. John's 
parish, Glasgow. Here he gained so much reputation that he was invited to 
take charge of the Caledonian Church in Cross Street, Hatton Garden, London; 
and he entered upon his new field in August, 1822. He had not long occupied 
it before he attracted very large congregations by the force and eloquence of 
his discourses, and the singularity of his appearance and gesticulation. Tall, 
athletic, of a sallow countenance, with a profusion of jet-black hair reaching 
to his shoulders, added to a strong Scottish accent, accompanied with violent 
and ungraceful, but impressive, gestures; while he was constantly straining 
after original ideas, embellishing his discourses with the metaphors of iDoets 
and philosophers, and adding to the piquancy of his censures by personal 
allusions and homely truths, — all these characteristics tended for a time to 



IRVING. 



231 



give him unbounded popularity, and the great and the wealthy thronged to 
hear him.i 

But in a few years the tide began to turn : his eccentricity had become fami- 
liar, and the curiosity of novelty-hunters was satiated. Envy and jealousy 
watched his course, and he was formally accused of heresy by the Presbytery 
of London in 1830.2 The charges were, that his views of the "atonement, im- 
putation, and satisfaction," were not orthodox, and after a protracted trial he 
was ejected from his church on the 3d of May, 1832. Soon after this, con- 
sumption laid its hand upon him, and he died on the 6th of December, 1834. 
Dr. Chalmers, on meeting with his senior class at Glasgow, on the morning he 
heard of Mr. Irving's death, paid the following tribute to his memory: — "He 
was one of those whom Burns calls the nobles of nature. His talents were so 
commanding that you could not but admire him ; and he was so open and 
generous that it was impossible not to love him. He was the evangelical 
Christian grafted on the old Roman : with the lofty, stern virtues of the one, 
he possessed the humble graces of the other. The constitutional basis and 
groundwork of his character was virtue alone; and, notwithstanding all his 
errors and extravagances, which both injured his character in the estimation 
of the world, and threw discredit upon much that was good and useful in his 
writings, I believe him to have been a man of deep and devoted piety ."^ 

Mr. Irving's publications were, — For the Oracles of God, four Orations; For 
Judgment to come, an Argument in nine parts ; also Last Days, and Discourses 9n 
the Evil Character of the Times; also Sermoihs, Lectures, and occasional Dis- 
coursesA But of all that he wrote, nothing exceeds, for beauty and eloquence, 
his Preliminary Essay to an edition of Home on the Psalms, from which we 
extract a small portion of his admirably drawn 

CHARACTER OF DAVID. 

Now, as the apostle, in writing to the Hebrews concerning the 
priesthood of Christ, calls upon them to consider Melchizedek, 
— his solitary majesty and singular condition and remarkable 
honor, so call we upon the church to consider David, the son of 
Jesse, — his unexampled accumulation of gifts, his wonderful 
variety of conditions, his spiritual riches and his spiritual desola- 



1 " Statesmen, orators^ the noble, the wealthy, 
the fashionable, occupied the seats of the 
church, and their carriages thronged the ad- 
jacent streets." 

2 " The proceedings were prolonged for about 
eighteen months, during which his religious 
opinions remained unchanged, and in addition 
he introduced at his church the extravagancies 
of the ' unknown tongues.' This supposed 
supernatural inspiration originated with some 
females at Glasgow, and were gradually trans- 
ferred to Mr. Irving's church, at first privately 
in prayer-meetings held at half-past six in the 
morning, but afterwards publicly in crowded 
congregations." 

3 " There was a young man at Kirkcaldy 
dying of consumption. The divines who had 
sought to turn his thoughts heavenward had 
gone away mourning over his obduracy and 
unbelief. Irving went and said, ' I come to 



tell you God loves you.' The dying youth 
listened, believed, and quitted earth with a 
comfortable faith in everlasting life. That wag 
the gospel Irving carried with him to every 
scene of sorrow and even to every haunt of 
vice, — not only to the sick beds of the com- 
paratively innocent, but to the abodes of irre- 
ligion and depravity; to Saffron-hill and Field- 
lane, where, as he says, there is ' unwrinkled 
villany' upon every face; to Shadwell, where 
the sailors stopped drinking to hear him; to 
Goodman's Fields, where the Jews threatened 
to stone him, but were awed and softened by 
his speech. Would that he had found no 
Christians more implacable than they!" — 
London Star. 

4 Read Edward Irving, an Ecclesiastical and 
Literary Biography, by Washington Wilks; 
also his Life, published in 1863, by Mrs. Oli- 
phant, 2 vols. 



232 IRVING. 

tion, and the multifarious contingencies of his life, with his 
faculty — his unrivalled faculty — of expressing the emotions of 
his soul under all the days of brightness and days of darkness 
which passed over his head. * * * There never was a speci- 
men of manhood so rich and ennobled as David, the son of Jesse, 
whom other saints haply may have equalled in single features of 
his character ; but such a combination of manly, heroic qualities, 
such a flush of generous, godlike excellencies, hath never yet 
been seen embodied in a single man. His Psalms, to speak as a 
man, do place him in the highest rank of lyrical poets, as they 
set him above all the inspired writers of the Old Testament, — 
equalling in sublimity the flights of Isaiah himself, and revealing 
the cloudy mystery of Ezekiel ; but in love of country, and 
glorying in its heavenly patronage, surpassing them all. And 
where are there such expressions of the varied conditions into 
which human nature is cast by the accidents of providence, such 
delineations of deep afiliction and inconsolable anguish, and anon 
such joy, such rapture, such revelry of emotion in the worship of 
the living God ! such invocations to all nature, animate and in- 
animate, such summonings of the hidden powers of harmony and 
of the breathing instruments of melody ! Single hymns of this 
poet would have conferred immortality upon any mortal, and 
borne down his name as one of the most favored of the sons 
of men. 

But it is not the writings of the man which strike us with such 
wonder, as the actions and events of his wonderful history. He 
was a hero without a peer, bold in battle and generous in victory: 
by distress or by triumph never overcome. Though -hunted like 
a wild beast among the mountains, and forsaken like a pelican in 
the wilderness, by the country whose armies he had delivered 
from disgrace and by the monarch whose daughter he had won, 
— whose son he had bound to him with cords of brotherly love, 
and whose OAvn soul he was wont to charm with the sacredness of 
his minstrelsy, — he never indulged malice or revenge against his 
unnatural enemies. Twice, at the peril of his life, he brought 
his blood-hunter wdthin his power, and twice he spared him, and 
would not be persuaded to injure a hair upon his head, — who, 
when he fell in his high places, was lamented over by David with 
the bitterness of a son, and his death avenged upon the sacri- 
legious man who had lifted his sword against the Lord's anointed. 
In friendship and love, and also in domestic aflection, he was not 
less notable than in heroical endowments, and in piety to God he 
was most remarkable of all. He had to flee from his bedchamber 
in the dead of night ; his friendly meetings had to be concerted 
upon the perilous edge of captivity and death ; his food he had to 
seek at the risk of sacrilege ; for a refuge from death to cast him- 
self upon the people of Gath, to counterfeit idiocy, and become 



IRVING. 233 

the laughing-stock of his enemies. And who shall tell of his 
hidings in the cave of Adullam, and of his wanderings in the 
wilderness of Ziph, — in the weariness of which he had power to 
stand before his armed enemy with all his host, and, by the gene- 
rosity of his deeds and the affectionate language which flowed 
from his lips, to melt into childlike weeping the obdurate spirit 
of King Saul, which had the nerve to evoke the spirits of the 
dead ? King David was a man extreme in all his excellencies, — 
a man of the highest strain, whether for counsel, for expression, 
or for action, in peace and in war, in exile and on the throne. 
That such a warm and ebullient spirit should have given way 
before the tide of its affections, we wonder not. We rather won- 
der that, tried by such extremes, his mighty spirit should not 
often have burst control, and enacted right forward the con- 
queror, the avenger, and the destroyer. * * * 

To conceive aright of the gracefulness and strength of King 
David's character, we must draw him into comparison with men 
similarly conditioned, and then we shall see how vain the world 
is to cope with him. Conceive a man who had saved his country 
and clothed himself with gracefulness and renown in the sight of 
all the people by the chivalry of his deeds, won for himself inter- 
marriage Avith the royal line, and by unction of the Lord's pro- 
phet been set apart to the throne itself; such a one conceive 
driven with fury from house and hold, and through tedious years 
deserted of every stay but heaven, with no soothing sympathies 
of quiet life, harassed forever between famine and the edge of the 
sword, and kept in savage holds and deserts ; and tell us, in the 
annals of men, of one so disappointed, so bereaved and straitened, 
maintaining not fortitude alone, but sweet composure and a hea- 
venly frame of soul, inditing praise to no avenging deity, and 
couching songs in no revengeful mood, according with his out- 
cast and unsocial life ; but inditing praises to the God of mercy, 
and songs which soar into the third heavens of the soul, — not, 
indeed, without the burst of sorrow and the complaint of solitari- 
ness, and prophetic warnings to his blood-thirsty foes, but ever 
closing in sweet preludes of good to come, and desire of present 
contentment. Find us such a one in the annals of men, and we 
yield the argument of this controversy. Men there have been 
driven before the wrath of kings to wander outlaws and exiles, 
whose musings and actings have been recorded to us in the min- 
strelsy of our native land. Draw these songs of the exile into 
comparison with the Psalms of David, and know the spirit of the 
man after God's own heart ; the stern defiance of the one, with 
the tranquil acquiescence of the other ; the deep despair of the 
one, with the rooted trust of the other ; the vindictive impreca- 
tions of the one, with the tender regret and forgiveness of the 
other. Show us an outlaw who never spoiled the country which 

20* 



234 IRVING. 

had forsaken him, nor turned his hand in self-defence or revenge 
upon his persecutors, — who used the vigor of his arm only against 
the enemies of his country, — yea, lifted up his arm in behalf of 
that mother which had cast her son, crowned "with salvation, 
away from her bosom, and held him at a distance from her love, 
and raised the rest of her family to hunt him to the death ; in 
the defence of that thankless, unnatural mother-country, find us 
such a repudiated son lifting up his arm and spending its vigor 
in smiting and utterly discomfiting her enemies, whose spoils he 
kept not to enrich himself and his ruthless followers, but dis- 
pensed to comfort her and her happier children. Find us, 
among the Themistocles and Coriolani and Cromwells and Napo- 
leons of the earth, such a man, and we will yield the argument 
of this controversy which we maintain for the peerless son of 
Jesse. 

But we fear that not such another man is to be found in the 
recorded annals of men. Though he rose from the peasantry to 
fill the throne and enlarge the borders of his native land, he gave 
himself neither to ambition nor to glory ; though more basely 
treated than the sons of men, he gave not place to despondency 
or revenge ; though of the highest genius in poetry, he gave it 
not license to sing his own deeds, nor to depict loose and licen- 
tious life, nor to ennoble any worldly sentiment or attachment 
of the human heart, however virtuous or honorable, but con- 
strained it to sing the praises of God and the victories of the 
right hand of the Lord of hosts, and his admirable works which 
are of old from everlasting. And he hath dressed out religion in 
such a rich and beautiful garment of divine poesy as beseemeth 
her majesty, in which, being arrayed, she can stand up, before 
the eyes even of her enemies, in more royal state than any per- 
sonification of love or glory or pleasure to which highly-gifted 
mortals have devoted their genius. 

The force of his character was vast, and the scope of his life 
w^as immense. His harp was full-stringed, and every angel of joy 
and of sorrow swept over the chords as he passed ; but the melody 
always breathed of heaven. And such oceans of afifection lay 
within his breast as could not always slumber in their calmness. 
For the hearts of a hundred men strove and struggled together 
within the narrow continent of his single heart. And will the 
scornful men have no sympathy for one so conditioned, but scorn 
him because he ruled not with constant quietness the unruly host 
of divers natures which dwelt within his single soul? Of self- 
command surely he will not be held deficient Avho endured Saul's 
javelin to be so often launched at him, while the people without 
were walling to hail him king; who endured all bodily hardships 
and taunts of his enemies wdien revenge was in his hand, and 
ruled his desperate band like a company of saints, ^nd restrained 



LAMB. 235 

them from their country's injury. But that he should not be 
able to enact all characters without a fault, the simple shepherd, 
the conquering hero, and the romantic lover ; the perfect friend, 
the innocent outlaw, and the royal monarch ; the poet, the pro- 
phet, and the regenerator of the church ; and withal the man, 
the man of vast soul, who played not these parts by turns, but 
was the original of them all, and wholly present in them all, — 
oh! that he should have fulfilled this high-priesthood of hu- 
manity, this universal ministry of manhood, without an error, 
were more than human ! With the defence of his backslidings, 
which he hath himself more keenly scrutinized, more clearly 
discerned against, and more bitterly lamented than any of his 
censors, we do not charge ourselves ; but if, when of these acts 
he became convinced, he be found less true to God and to 
righteousness ; indisposed to repentance and sorrow and anguish ; 
exculpatory of himself; stout-hearted in his courses ; a formalist 
in his penitence, or in any way less Avorthy of a spiritual man in 
those than in the rest of his infinite moods, then, verily, strike 
him from the canon, and let his Psalms become monkish le- 
gends, or what you please. But if these penitential Psalms dis- 
cover the soul's deepest hell of agony, and lay bare the iron 
ribs of misery, whereon the very heart dissolveth; and if they, 
expressing the same in words, which melt the soul that con- 
ceiveth and bow the head that uttereth them, — then, we say, let 
us keep these records of the psalmist's grief and despondency as 
the most precious of his utterances, and sure to be needed in the 
case of every man who essayeth to live a spiritual life. 



CHARLES LAMB, 1775-183^. 

Here sleeps beneath this bank, where daisies grow, 

The kindliest sprite earth holds within her breast : 

In such a spot I would this frame should rest, 
When I to join my friend far hence shall go. 
His only mate is now the minstrel lark, 

Who chants her morning music o'er his bed, 
Save she who comes each evening, ere the bark 

Of watch-dog gathers drowsy folds, — to shed 

A sister's tears. Kind Heaven, upon her head 
Do Thou in dove-like guise Thy spirit pour, 

And in her aged path some flowerets spread 

Of earthly joy, should Time for her in stox-e 
Have weary days and nights, ere she shall greet 
Him whom she longs in Paradise to meet. 

MOXON. 

Charles Lamb, the distinguished essayist and critic, was born in London 
on the 11th of February, 1775. At the age of seven, he entered the school 
of Christ Hospital, where he remained till he was fourteen, when he was em- 
ployed by his brother for a short time in the South Sea House, of which he, in 



236 



LAMB. 



after-years, gave a most graphic and humorous account, in one of his inimi- 
table essays. In 1793 he obtained an appointment in the accountants' depart- 
ment in the India House, where he remained till 1825, when he was allowed 
to retire on a handsome pension.i The events of his life, of a domestic nature, 
are of little moment. He resided in London, at first with tis parents, and 
enjoyed occasionally the society of such men as "Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
Southey, and his biographer. Sergeant Talfourd. "On the death of his 
parents," says Talfourd, " he felt himself called upon by duty to repay to his 
sister the solicitude with which she had watched over his infancy : and well, 
indeed, he performed it. To her, from the age of twenty-one, he devoted his 
existence, seeking thenceforth no connection which could interfere with her 
supremacy in his affections or impair his ability to sustain or to comfort 
her."* His first appearance as an author was in a small volume of poetry 
published by his friend Coleridge in 1797, to which he contributed various 
pieces. A few years afterward appeared Old Blind Margaret and Rosamond 
Gray, a tale of great simplicity, sweetness, and pathos. In 1802 he published 
John Woodvil, a Tragedy ; but it had no success. In 1808 appeared his Speci- 
mens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakspeare, with 
Notes, chiefly critical. This work showed a thorough appreciation of the old 
dramatists, and a fine critical taste in analyzing their genius. 

But the most celebrated of all Lamb's works were his essays signed Elia,^ 
which were published in various periodicals, chiefly the London Magazine, 
between the years 1820 and 1833. These are, in their kind, unique and incom- 
parable, displaying his extensive and curious reading, his nice observation, his 
delicate poetical conceptions, and a genial humor which, in some respects, 
quite rivals that of Addison. "All these essays," says his biographer, "are 
carefully elaborated ; yet never were works written in a higher defiance to the 
conventional pomp of style. A sly hit, a happy pun, a humorous combination, 
lets the light into the intricacies of the subject, and supplies the place of 
ponderous sentences. Seeking his materials for the most part in the common 
paths of life, — often in the humblest, — he gives an importance to every thing, 
and sheds a grace over all." In 1830 appeared his small volume of poems 
called Album Verses. In conjunction with his sister he also compiled three 



1 " The years which Lamb passed in his cham- 
bers in the Inner Temple were, perhaps, the 
happiest of his life. His salary was consider- 
ably augmented; his fame as an author was 
rapidly extending; he resided near the spot 
which he best loved, and was surrounded by 
a motley group of attached friends, some of 
them men of rarest parts, and all strongly 
attached to him and his sister. Here the glory 
of his Wednesday nights shone forth in its 
greatest lustre. If you did not meet here the 
favorites of fortune, — authors whose works bore 
the highest price in Paternoster Row, and 
who glittered in the circles of fashion, — you 
might find those who had thought most 
deeply, felt most keenly, and were destined to 
produce the most lasting influences on the 
literature and manners of the age." — Tal- 
fourd, in his edition of Lamb's Works, vol. i. 
p. 273. 

2 " Few biographies display so much beanty 
as those of Charles Lamb and his sister Mary, 
and few are more marked by a toiiching and 



lively interest. Devotedly attached to each 
other by a strong sympathy both in mental 
and physical temperament and a highly re- 
fined and cultivated literary taste, they passed 
from youth to age ; and, when first the brother, 
and afterwards the sister, were laid in the 
same grave, in the peaceful churchyard of 
Edmonton, it might truly be said of them that 
they were lovely and pleasant in their lives, 
and in their death they were not divided." 
Read an interesting article on Charles Lamb 
and his sister Mary in Chambers's Book of Days, 
vol. ii. p. 774. 

3 " The adoption of thia signature was purely 
accidental. His first contribution to the maga- 
zine was a description of the old South Sea 
House, where Lamb had passed a few months' 
novitiate as a clerk thirty years before, and 
of its inmates who had long passed away ; and, 
remembering the name of a gay, light-hearted 
foreigner who fluttered there at that time, he 
subscribed his name to the essay." — Talfoued, 
Lamb's Works, i. p. 302. 



LAMB. 



237 



very popular books for children, namely, Mrs. Leicester's School, or the History 
of several Young Ladies, related by themselves; Tales from Shakspeare ; and The 
Adventures of Ulysses. His volume bearing the title of The Last Essays of 
Elia appeared in 1833, but he did not long survive its publication, as he died 
on the 27th of December, 1834.1 

As a poet Lamb does not take a very high rank ; but in his own walks in 
prose, few have surpassed him. In depth of thought and sjalendor of genius 
he was surpassed by several of his contemporaries ; but as an essayist he is 
entitled to a place beside Rabelais, Montaigne, Sir Thomas Browne, Steele, and 
Addison. He unites many of the characteristics of these several writers. He 
has refined wit, exquisite humor, a genuine and cordial vein of pleasantry, and 
heart- touching pathos. His fancy as an essayist is distinguished by great 
delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits are imbued with human feeling 
and passion. A confirmed habit of studying the early English writers had 
made their style, as it were, natural to him; and, while he had their manner, 
he had likewise much of their spirit. As a critic he displays exquisite powers 
of discrimination in his brief comments on the specimens of the early English 
dramatic writers. He discerns at once the true meaning of the writer, and 
seizes with unerring precision upon the proper point of view from which the 
piece ought to be seen.^ 

THE HOUSEKEEPER. 

The frugal snail, with forecast of repose, 
Carries his house with liim where'er he goes ; 
Peeps out, — and, if there comes a shower of rain, 
Retreats to his small domicile amain. 
Touch but a tip of him, a horn, 'tis well, — 
He curls up in his sanctuary shell. 
He's his own landlord, his own tenant ; stay 
Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day. 
Himself he boards and lodges ; both invites 
And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o' nights. 
He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure 
Chattels ; himself is his own furniture, * 

And his sole riches. Wheresoe'er he roam, 
Knock when you will, he's sure to be at home. 



1 "During the last five years tobacco had 
been at once Lamb's solace and his bane. In 
the hope of resisting the temptation of late 
conviviality, to which it ministered, he formed 
a resolution, the virtue of which can be but 
dimly guessed, to abandon its use, and he 
embodied the floating fancies which had at- 
tended on his long wavering, in one of the 
richest of his poems. The Farewell to Tobacco." 
— Worl-s, vol. i. p. 201. 

In this poem he well execrates the vile 
weed as 

" Stinking'st of (he stinking kind, 
Filth of the mouth, and fog of the mind." 

2 Plead Biography, by Talfovu-d ; also articles 



in the EduiMrgh Review, Ixvi. 1 ; Quarterly, 
liv. 58; and Encycloj^iedia Britannica. Also, 
London Athensevm of 1848, p. 741 ; Gentleman's 
Magazine, Nov. 1848, p. 451; American Quar- 
terly, xix. 185, and xxii. 473. Also, an article 
entitled Charles Lamb and his Friends, in the 
North British Revieio, x. 179. 

" Of his own writings it is now superfluous to 
speak ; for, after having encountered long de- 
rision and neglect, they have taken their place 
among the classics of the language. They 
stand alone, at once singular and delightful." 
Again: "In all things he is most human; of 
all modern writers his works are most imme- 
diately directed to give us heart-ease and to 
make us happy."— Thomas Noon Talfourd. 



238 LAMB. 



ON THE FAMILY NAME. 

What reason first imposed thee, gentle name, — 
Name that my fatlier bore, and his sire's sire. 
Without reproach? we trace our stream no higher; 

And I, a childless man, may end the same. 

Perchance some shepherd 'on Lincolnian plains, 
In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks, 
E-eceived thee first amid the merry mocks 

And arch allusions of his fellow swains. 

Pei'chance from Salem's holier fields return' d, 
With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd 
Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord 

Took HIS meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd. 

Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings came. 

No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name. 

THE SABBATH BELLS. 

The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard, 
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice 
Of one who from the far-oft' hills proclaims 
Tidings of good to Zion : chiefly when 
Their piercing tones fall sudden on the ear 
Of the contemplant, solitary man, 
AVhom thouglils abstruse or high have chanced to lure 
Forth from tlie walks of men, revolving oft. 
And oft again, hard matter, which eludes 
And baflles his pursuit, — thought-sick, and tired 
Of controversy, where no end appears. 
No clue to his research, the lonely man 
Half wishes for society again. 
Him, thus engaged, the Sabbath bells salute 
Sudden/ his heart awakes, his ears drink in 
The cheering music : his relenting soul 
Yearns after all the joys of social life, 
* And softens with the love of human kind. 

TO HIS MOTHER.^ 

A wayward son ofttimes I was to thee; 
And yet in all our little bickerings. 
Domestic jars, there was, I know not what, 
Of tender" feelings that were ill exchanged 
For this world's chilling friendships, and their smiles 
Familiar whom the heart calls strangers still. 
A heavy lot hath he, most wretched man. 
Who lives the last of all his family : 
He looks aroimd him, and his eye discerns 
The face of the stranger, — and his heart is sick. 
Man of the world, what canst thou do for him ? 
Wealth is a burden which he could not bear ; 

1 From the latest work concerning this gifted I and his Books, by Percy Fitzgerald, M.A., 4c. 
man, Charles Lamb : his Frie7ids, his Haiints, \ 1866. 



LAMB. 239 

Mirth a strange crime, the which he dares not act ; 

And generous wines no cordial to his soul : 

For wounds like his, Christ is the only cure. 

Go, preach thou to him of a world to come, 

Where friends shall meet, and know each other's face; 

Say less than this, and say it to the winds. 

SHAKSPEARE CANNOT BE ACTED. 

The characters of Shak^peare are so much the objects of medi- 
tation rather than of interest or curiosity, as to their actions, that 
while we are reading any of his great criminal characters, — 
Macbeth, Richard, even lago, — we think not so much of the 
crimes which they commit, as of the ambition, the aspiring spirit, 
the intellectual activity, which prompts them to overleap those 
moral fences. In Shakspeare, so little do the actions compara- 
tively affect us, that while the impulses, the inner mind, in all 
its perverted greatness, solely seems real and is exclusively at- 
tended to, the crime is comparatively nothing. But when we see 
these things represented, the acts which they do are comparatively 
every thing, their impulses nothing. The state of sublime emotion 
into which we are elevated by those images of fright and horror 
which Macbeth is made to utter, — that solemn prelude with which 
he entertains the time till the bell shall strike which is to call 
him to murder Duncan, — when we no longer read it in a book, — ■ 
when we have given up that vantage-ground of abstraction which 
reading possesses over seeing, and come to see a man, in his bodily 
shape before our eyes, actually preparing to commit a murder, — 
the painful anxiety about the act, the natural longing to prevent 
it while it yet seems unperpetrated, the too close-pressing sem- 
blance of reality, gives a pain and an uneasiness which totally 
destroy all the delight which the words in the book convey, where 
the deed-doing never presses upon us with the painful sense of 
presence ; it rather seems to belong to history, — to something past 
and inevitable, — if it has any thing to do with time at all. The 
sublime images, the poetry alone, is that which is present to our 
minds in the reading. 

So, to see Lear acted — to see an old man tottering about the 
stage with a walking-stick, turned out of doors by his daughters 
in a rainy night — has nothing in it but what is painful and dis- 
gusting. We want to take him into shelter and relieve him, — • 
that is all the feeling which the acting of Lear ever produced in 
me: but the Lear of Shakspeare cannot be acted. The con- 
temptible machinery by which they mimic the storm which he 
goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of 
the real elements than any actor can be to represent Lear : they 
might more easily propose to personate the Satan of Milton upon 
a stage, or one of Michael Angelo's terrible figures. The great- 



240 LAMB. 

ness of Lear is not in corporal dimensions, but in intellectual ; 
the explosions of his passion are terrible as a volcano, — they are 
storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that sea, his 
mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare„ 
This case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant to be thought 
on, — even as he himself neglects it. On the stage we see nothing 
but corporal infirmities and weakness, the impotence of rage ; 
while we read it, we see not Lear, but we are Lear, — we are in 
his mind, — we are sustained by a gfandeur which bafiles the 
malice of daughters and storms ;• in the aberrations of his reason 
we discover a mighty irregular power of reasoning, immethodized 
from the ordinary purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the 
win^l blows where it listeth, at will upon the corruptions and 
abuses of mankind. What have looks or tones to do Avith that 
sublime identification of his age with that of the heavens them- 
selves, when, in his reproaches to them for conniving at the in- 
justice of his children, he reminds them that " they themselves 
are old" ? AVhat gesture shall we appropriate to this ? What 
has the voice or the eye to do with such things ? 

Q UA KEBS— OA TIIS. 

I love Quaker ways and Quaker worship. I venerate the 
Quaker principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when 
I meet any of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or 
disturbed by any occurrence, the sight or quiet voice of a 
Quaker acts upon me as a ventilator, lightening the air and 
taking off a load from the bosom. But I cannot like the Quakers 
(as Desdemoua would say) " to live with them." I am all over 
sophisticated, — with humors, fancies, craving hourly sympatliy. 
I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, 
ambiguities, and a thousand whimwhams, which their simpler 
taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive banquet. 
My apix^tites are too high for the salads which (according to 
Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto too excited 

" To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse." 

The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to return 
to a question put to them may be explained, I think, without the 
vulgar assumption that they are more given to evasion and equi- 
vocating than other people. They naturally look to their words 
more carefully, and are more cautious of committing themselves. 
They have a peculiar character to keep up on this head. They 
stand in a manner upon their veracity. A Quaker is by law 
exempted from taking an oath. The custom of resorting to an 
oath in extreme cases, sanctified as it is by all religious anti- 
quity, is apt (it must be confessed) to introduce into the laxer 



LAMB. 241 

sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth, — the one appli- 
cable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the com- 
mon proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon the 
conscience by an oath can be but truth, so in the common affirma- 
tions of the shop and the market-place a latitude is expected and 
conceded upon questions wanting this solemn covenant. Some- 
thing less than truth satisfies. It is common to hear a person 
say, " You do not expect me to speak as if I were upon my 
oath." Hence a great deal of incorrectness and inadvertency, 
short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary conversation ; and a kind 
of secondary or laic truth is tolerated, where clergy-truth — oath- 
truth, by the nature of circumstances — is not required. A Quaker 
knows none of this distinction. His simple affirmation being re- 
ceived, upon the most sacred occasions, without any further test, 
stamps a value upon the words which he is to use upon the most 
indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally, with more 
severity. You can have of him no more than his word. He 
knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, he forfeits, 
for himself at least, his claim to the invidious exemption. He 
knows that his syllables are weighed ; and how far a conscious- 
ness of this particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has 
a tendency to produce indirect answers and a diverting of the 
question by honest means, might be illustrated and the practice 
justified by a more sacred example than is proper to be adduced 
upon this occasion. The admirable presence of mind which is 
notorious in Quakers upon all contingencies might be traced to 
this imposed self- watchfulness, if it did not seem rather an humble 
and secular scion of that old stock of religious constancy which 
never bent or faltered in the primitive Friends, or gave way to 
the winds of persecution, to the violence of judge or accuser, 
under trials and racking examinations. " You will never be the 
wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till midnight," said 
one of those upright justices to Penn, who had been putting law 
cases with a puzzling subtlety. " Thereafter as the answers may 
be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing composure of this 
people is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances. 
I was travelling in a stage-coach with three male Quakers, but- 
toned up in the straightest nonconformity of their sect. We 
stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea-apparatus, 
partly supper, was set before us. My friends confined them- 
selves to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the 
landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my companions dis- 
covered that she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. 
Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild argu- 
ments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated 
mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The 
guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers 

21 



242 LAMB. 

pulled out their money and formally tendered it, — so much for 
tea ; I, in humble imitation, tendering mine for the supper which 
I had taken. She would not relax in her demand. So they all 
three quietly put up their silver, as did myself, and marched out 
of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing 
up the rear, who thought I could not do better than follow the 
example of such grave and warrantable personages. We got in. 
The steps went up. The coach drove off. The murmurs of mine 
hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously pronounced, be- 
came, after a time, inaudible ; and now my conscience, which the 
whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give 
some twitches, I waited in the hopes that some justification would 
be offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of 
their conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped 
on the subject. They sat as mute as at a meeting. At length 
the eldest of them broke silence, by inquiring of his next neigh- 
bor, "Hast thou heard how indigoes go at the India House?" 
and the question operated as a soporific on my moral feeling as 
far as Exeter. 

CO WPER. 

I have been reading The Task with fresh delight. I am glad 
you love Cowper : I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton; 
but I would not call that man my friend who should be offended 
with the " divine chit-chat of Cowper."^ 

LFBli ARIES. 

What a place to be in is an old library ! It seems as if all the 
souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labors to these 
Bodleians^ were reposing here as in some dormitory, or middle 
state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, — their 
winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to 
inhale learning walking amid their foliage ; and the odor of 
their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of 
those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard. 

THE TWO RACES OF MEN. 

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of 
it, is composed of two distinct races, — the men who borrow, and 
the men who lend. To these two original diversities may be re- 
duced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic 
tribes, — white men, black men, red men. All the dwellers upon 
earth — " Parthians and Medes and Elamites" — flock hither and 



1 Letter to Coleridge. 

» Alluding to the famous Bodleian Library at Oxford, founded by Sir Thomas Bodley, 1697. 



LAMB. 243 

do naturally fall in with one or other of these primary distinc- 
tions. The infinite superiority of the former, which I choose to 
designate as the great race,' is discernible in their figure, port, 
and a certain instinctive sovereignty. The latter are born de- 
graded, " He shall serve his brethren." There is something in 
the air of one of this cast lean and suspicious, contrasting with 
the. open, trusting, generous manners of the other. 

Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all ages, — 
Alcibiades, Falstaff, Sir Eichard Steele, our late incomparable 
Brinsley : what a family-likeness. in all four! 

What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower ! what 
rosy gills! what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he 
manifest, — taking no more thought than lilies ! What contempt 
for money, — accounting it (yours and mine especially) no better 
than dross ! What a liberal confounding of those pedantic dis- 
tinctions of meum and tuumf or, rather, what a noble simplifica- 
tion of language (beyond Tooke), resolving these supposed oppo- 
sites into one clear, intelligible pronoun-adjective ! What near 
approaches doth he make to the primitive community, — to the 
extent of one-half of the principle at least. 

He is the true taxer who " calleth all the world up to be 
taxed ;" and the distance is as vast between him and one of us as 
subsisted between the Augustan Majesty and the poorest obolary 
Jew that paid it tribute-pittance at Jerusalem ! His exactions, 
too, have such a cheerful, voluntary air ! So far removed from 
your sour parochial or state-gatherers, — those ink-horn varlets 
who carry their want of welcome in their faces ! He cometh to 
you with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt ; confining 
himself to no set season. Every day is his Candlemas, or his 
Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the lejie tormentum of a 
pleasant look to your purse, — which to that gentle warmth ex- 
pands her silken leaves as naturally as the cloak of the traveller, 
for which sun and wind contended. He is the true Propontis 
which never ebbeth, — the sea which taketh handsomely at each 
man's hand. In vain the victim, whom he delighteth to honor, 
struggles with destiny : he is in the net. Lend, therefore, cheer- 
fully, O man, ordained to lend, — that thou lose not in the end, 
with thy worldly penny, the reversion promised. Combine not 
preposterously in thine own person the penalties of Lazarus and 
of Dives ! but, wlien thou . seest the proper authority coming, 
meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, a handsome sacri- 
fice ! See how light he makes of it ! Strain not courtesies with 
a noble enemy. 

Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by 
the death of my old friend, 'RalJDh Bigod, Esq., who departed this 
life on Wednesday evening, dying, as he had lived, without much 
trouble. He boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors 



244 LAMB. 

of that name, who heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. 
In his actions and sentiments he belied not the stock to which he 
pretended. Early in life he found himself invested with ample 
revenues, which, with that noble disinterestedness which I have 
noticed as inherent in men of the great race, he took almost im- 
mediate measures entirely to dissipate and bring to nothing : for 
there is something revolting in the idea of a king's holding a 
private purse ; and the thoughts of Bigod were all regal. Thus, 
furnished by the very act of disfurnishment ; getting rid of the 
cumbersome luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings) 

" To slacken virtue and abate her edge, 
Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise ;" 

he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, 
" borrowing and to borrow !" 

In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, 
it has been calculated that he laid a tithe part of the inhabitants 
under contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly exagge- 
rated : but, having had the honor of accompanying my friend 
divers times in his perambulations about this vast city, I own I 
was greatly struck at first with the prodigious number of faces 
we met, who claimed a sort of respectful acquaintance with us. 
He was one day so obliging as to explain the phenomenon. It 
seems these were his tributaries ; feeders of his exchequer ; 
gentlemen, his good friends (as he was pleased to express him- 
self), to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a loan. 
Their multitudes did no way disconcert him. He rather took a 
pride in numbering them ; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to 
be " stocked with so fair a herd." 

With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep 
his treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, 
which he had often in his mouth, that " money kept longer than 
three days stinks." So he made use of it while it was fresh. A 
good part he drank away (for he was an excellent toss-pot) ; 
some he gave away, the rest he threw away, literally tossing and 
hurling it violently from him — as boys do burrs, or as if it had 
been infectious — into ponds or ditches or deep holes, inscrutable 
cavities of the earth ; or he would bury it (where he would never 
see it again) by a river's side under some bank, which (he would 
facetiously observe) paid no interest, — but out away from him it 
must go peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring, into the wilderness 
while it was sweet. He never missed it. The streams were 
perennial which fed his fisc. When new supplies became neces- 
sary, the first person that had the felicity to fall in with him, 
friend or stranger, was sure to contribute to the deficiency. For 
Bigod had an undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, 
open exterior, a quick, jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched 



LAMB. 245 

with grey (cana fides). He anticipated no excuse, and found 
none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the great race, 
I would put it to the most untheorizing reader, who may at times 
have disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repug- 
nant to the kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am 
describing, than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue (your 
bastard borrower), who, by his mumping visnomy, tells you that 
he expects nothing better, and, therefore, whose preconceived 
notions and expectations you do in reality so much less shock in 
the refusal. 

When I think of this man : his fiery glow of heart ; his swell 
of feeling ; how magnificent, how ideal, he was ; how great at the 
midnight hour ; and when I compare with him the companions 
with whom I have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few 
idle ducats, and think that I am fallen into the society of lenders 
and little men. 

The following is a portion of a letter to Coleridge, in which he most beauti- 
fully pours forth his feelings of 

FILIAL AFFECTION. 

I am wedded, Coleridge, to the fortunes of my sister and my 
poor old father. Oh, my friend ! I think sometimes, could I re- 
call the da3'^s that are past, which among them should I choose ? 
Not those " merrier days," not the " pleasant days of hope," not 
"those wanderings with a fair-haired maid," which I have so 
often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of a 
mother's fondness for her schoolboy. What would I give to call her 
back to earth for one day, on my knees to ask her pardon for all 
those little asperities of temper which, from time to time, have 
given her gentle spirit pain ! And the day, my friend, I trust, 
will come ; there will be " time enough" for kind offices of love, 
if " Heaven's eternal year" be ours. Hereafter her meek spirit 
shall not reproach me. Oh, my friend, cultivate the filial feel- 
ings ! and let no man think himself released from the kind " cha- 
rities" of relationship : these shall give him peace at the last ; 
these are the best foundation for every species of benevolence. 
I rejoice to hear, by certain channels, that you, my friend, are 
reconciled with all your relations. 'Tis the most kindly and 
natural species of love, and we have all the associated train of 
early feelings to secure its strength and perpetuity. 

21* 



246 



HOGG. 



JAMES HOGG, 1772-1835. 

James Hogg, known by the appellation of "the Ettrick Shepherd," ^ was 
descended from a family of shepherds, and born on the 25th of January, 1772. 
At the early age of seven he became a cowherd, and was afterward raised to 
the more dignified post of shepherd. During his progress in these callings he 
suffered many hardships, which he humorously describes in his published 
autobiography J but, like many other great men, he owed the nursing of the 
talent which God had given him to his mother, who saw his genius, and fed it 
by singing and repeating to him in his childhood many of the old ballads of 
Scotland. When eighteen years of age, he entered the service of a Mr. Laid- 
law, in the capacity of a shepherd, with whom he lived nine years, and by 
whom he was treated with the kindness of a parent. This gentleman possessed 
many valuable books, which Hogg, who had but recently learned to read, 
almost literally devoured in the delight he felt in the exercise of this new 
acquisition. His first literary effort was in song-writing, and in 1801 he pub- 
lished a small volume of poems, and afterward, encouraged by Sir Walter 
Scott, while still in the capacity of a shepherd, he published another volume 
of songs and poems, under the title of The Mountain Bard. With the money 
he received for this, and for An Essay on Sheep, which gained a premium from 
the Highland Society, he entered into farming speculations, but in three years 
found himself penniless. Not being able to find employment in his early 
occupation at his native place, he went to Edinburgh, determined, as he says, 
**to force himself into notice as a literary character." At first he was unsuc- 
cessful; but on the appearance of The Queens Wake, in 1813, his reputation as 
a true poet was at once established. "This legendary poem" is composed of 
a series of tales and lyric legends, supposed to be sung before Mary, Queen of 
Scots, by the native bards of Scotland assembled at a royal "Wake" (or night- 
meeting) at the palace of Holyrood, in order that the fair queen might prove 

" The wondrous powers of Scottish song." 

''The design was excellent, and the execution so varied and masterly, that 
Hogg was at once placed among the first of living poets. The different pro- 
ductions of the native minstrels are strung together by a thread of narrative 
so gracefully written in many parts that the reader is surprised equally at the 
delicacy and genius of the author." 

After this, Hogg published various works, — Mador of the Moor, a poem in 
the Spenserian stanza; Pilgrims of the Sun, in blank verse; Poetic Mirror; 
Queen Hynde ; Dramatic Tales; also several novels, as Winter Evening Tales; 
Brownie of Bodsheck ; The Three Perils of Man; The Three Perils of Woman; 
Jacobite Belies of Scotland, &c. He also wrote much for various periodicals, 
and has the reputation of being one of the founders of Blackwood's Magazine. 
He lived in the latter years of his life in a cottage which he had built at 
Altrive, supporting himself chiefly by his pen; and died on the 21st of 
November, 1835. 



1 Ettrick is a small place in the county of 
Selkirk, about forty miles south of Edinburgh, 
and near the head-waters of the river Ettrick, 



which flows into the Tweed. The principal 
branch of this stream is the Yarrow, which 
Hogg often mentions in his poetry. 



HOGG. 



247 



Of the seventeen songs of the Queen's Wake, the most beautiful and imagi- 
native is Kihncny, founded upon the well-known tradition of the power of the 
fairies to carry mortals into their country. Kilmeny, a pure and beautiful 
maiden, is thus spirited away into fairy-laiad, where she sees various visions, 
in v/hich are depicted the fortunes of Queen Mary and her successors till the 
revolution of 1688, and the war of the Fi'ench Kevolution is foreshadowed. 
The following describes 



KILMENTS RETURN FROM FAIRY-LAND. 

Then Kilmeny begg'd again to see 
The friends she had left in her own coiintrye, 
To tell of the place where she had been, 
And the glories tliat lay in the land unseen. 
With distant music, soft and deep, 
They lull'd Kilmeny sound asleep : 
And when she awaken'd, she lay her lane,^ 
All happ'd^ with flowers in the greenwood wane.' 
When seven lang years had come and fled, 
When grief was calm and hope was dead. 
When scarce was remember'd Kilraeny's name, 
Late, late in the gloamin* Kilmeny came liame! 
And oh, her beauty was fair to see, 
But still and steadfast was her ee ; 
Such beauty bard may never declare, 
For there was no pride nor passion there ; 
And the soft desire of maiden's een 
In that mild face could never be seen. 
Her seymar^ was the lily flower, 
And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower ; 
And her voice like the distant melodye 
That floats along the twilight sea. 
But she loved to raike ^ the lanely glen, 
And keep'd afar frae the haunts of men, 
Her holy hymns unheard to sing, 
To suck the flowers and drink the spring. 
But wherever her peaceful form appear' d, 
The wild beasts of the hill were cheer'd ; 
The wolf play'd blithely round the field, 
The lordly bison low'd and kneel'd, 
The dun deer woo'd with manner bland, 
And cower'd aneatli her lily hand. 
And when at eve the woodlands rung, 
When hymns of other worlds she sung. 
In ecstasy of sweet devotion, 
Oh, then the glen was all in motion ; 
The wild beasts of the forest came. 
Broke from their bughts and faulds '^ the tame, 
And gov'd^ around, charm'd and amazed; 
Even the dull cattle croon' d^ and gazed. 



1 " Her lane," herself alone. — 2 « Happ'd," 
covered. — 3 " Wane," habitation, place of rest. 
— * " Gloamin," twilight. — 5 " Seyniar," resem- 
blance. — ^ "Raike," range. — ^ "Bughts and 



faulds," enclosures and folds, — 8 "Gov'd," 
moved about inquiringly. — ^9 " Croon'd," emit- 
ted a murmuring sound. 



248 HOGG. , 

And murmur'd, and look'd with anxious pain 

For something the mystery to explain. 

The buzzard came with the throstle-cock ; 

The corby left her houf ^ in the rock ; 

The blackbird alang wi' the eagle flew ; 

The hind came tripping o'er the dew ; 

The wolf and the kid their raike began, 

And the tod,'^ and the lamb, and the leveret ran ; 

The hawk and the hern attour^ them hung, 

And the merl and the mavis forhooy'd* their young; 

And all in a peaceful ring were hurl'd : 

It was like an eve in a sinless world ! , 

When a month and a day had come and gane, 

Kilmeny sought the greenwood wane, 

There laid her down on the leaves so green, 

And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen! 

QUEEN 3fARY'S RETURN TO SCOTLAND. 

After a youth by woes o'ercast, 
After a thousand sorrows past, 
The lovely Mary once again 
Set foot upon her native plain ; 
Knelt on the pier with modest grace. 
And turn'd to heaven her beauteous face. 
'Twas then the caps in air were blended, 
A thousand thousand shouts ascended, 
Shiver'd the breeze around the throng. 
Gray barrier clifls the peals prolong ; 
And every tongue gave thanks to heaven, 
That Mary to their hopes was given. 

Her comely form and graceful mien 

Bespoke the lady and the queen ; 

The woes of one so fair and young 

Moved every heart and every tongue. 

Driven from her home, a helpless child, 

To brave the winds and billows wild ; 

An exile bred in realms afar, 

Amid commotions, broils, and war. 

In one short year, her hopes all cross' d, — 

A parent, husband, kingdom, lost ! 

And all ere eighteen years had shed 

Their honors o'er her royal head. 

For such a queen, the Stuarts' heir, — 

A queen so courteous, young, and fair, — 

Who would not every foe dety ? 

Who would not stand, — who would not die ? 

Light on her airy steed she sprung. 
Around with golden tassels hung : 
No chieftain there rode half so free, 
Or half so light and gracefully. 

i"Houf," haunt.— 2 "Tod," fox.— 3 " Attour," about, around.—* "Merl," &c., the blackbird 
and thrush forsook. 



HOGG. 249 

How sweet to see her ringlets pale 

Wide waving in the southland gale, 

Which through the broomwood blossoms flew, 

To fan her cheeks of rosy hue ! 

Whene'er it heaved her bosom's screen, 

What beauties in her form were seen ! 

And when her courser's mane it swung, 

A thousand silver bells were rung. 

A sight so fair, on Scottish plain, 

A Scot shall never see again ! 



THE SKY-LARK. 

Bird of the wilderness. 

Blithesome and cumberless, 
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea ! 

Emblem of happiness, 

Blest is thy dwelling-place : — 
Oh to abide in the desert with thee ! 

Wild is thy lay, and loud. 

Far in the downy cloud ; 
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth. 

Where, on thy dewy wing. 

Where art thou journeying? 
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. 

O'er fell and fountain sheen, 

O'er moor and mountain green, 
O'er the red streamer that heralds the day. 

Over the cloudlet dim, 

Over the rainbow's rim, 
Musical cherub, soar singing away ! 

TheUj when the gloaming comes, 

Low in the heather blooms 
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! 

Emblem of happiness, 

Blest is thy dwelling-place : — 
Oh to abide in the desert with thee ! 



VIRTUE. 

The heart, unalter'd in its mood. 
That joys alone in doing good, 
And follows in the heavenly road. 
And steps where once an angel trod, — 
The joys within such heart that burn, 
No loss can quench, nor time o'erturn ! 
The stars may from their orbits bend. 
The mountains rock, the heavens rend, 
The sun's last ember cool and quiver, 
But Virtue still shall glow forever ! 



250 FELICIA HEMANS. 



MUSIC. 

Of all the arts beneath the heaven, 
That man has found, or God has given, 
None draws the soul so sweet away 
As Music's melting mystic lay ; 
Slight emblem of the bliss above, 
It soothes the spirit all to love. 



BLESSED BE THY NA3IE FOREVER. 

Blessed be Thy name forever. 

Thou of life the guard and giver ! 

Thou canst guard Thy creatures sleeping, 

Heal the heart long broke with weeping. 

God of stillness and of motion, 

Of the desert and the ocean. 

Of the mountain, rock, and river, 

Blessed be Thy name forever ! 

Thou who slumberest not nor sleepest. 

Blest are they Thou kindly keepest, 

God of evening's parting ray, 

Of midnight's gloom, and dawning day, 

That rises from the azure sea 

Like breathings of eternity. 

God of life! that fade shall never, 

Blessed be Thy name forever! 



FELICIA ILEMANS, 1793-1835. 

Felicia Dorothea Browne was the daughter of a Liverpool merchant, and 
was born on the 25th of September, 1793. From her earliest years she was 
remarkable for her extreme beauty and precocious talent. When she was 
seven, her father was unsuccessful in business, and removed to Wales. Here 
the young poetess passed a happy childhood, and here she imbibed that intense 
love of nature which ever afterward " haunted her like a passion." She early 
began to court the Muse, and in 1808 a volume of her poems was published; 
but it was not received with much favor. This, however, did not discourage 
her, and she continued to write. In 1812 another volume, entitled The Do- 
mestic Affections, and other Poems, was given to the world, — the last that was 
to appear under her maiden name, for in the summer of that year she ex- 
changed it for the one by which she is generally known, her youthful fancy 
having been captivated by the martial appearance and military dress of a 
Captain Hemans, of the army. The match proved a very unhappy one; and 
after they had lived together six years, in 1818, Captain Hemans, whose 
health had been impaired by a military life, determined to try the effects 
of a southern climate, and went to Italy, (Mrs. Hemans, with her five boys, 
repairing to her maternal roof,) and the two never met again. She continued 
her studies in her rural retreat, acquiring several languages, and in 1819 



FELICIA HEMANS. 



251 



obtained a prize of £50 for the best poem upon Sir "William "Wallace. In 1820 
she published the Skeptic, which was favorably noticed in the Edinburgh 
Monthly Magazine. In June, 182], she obtained the prize awarded by the 
Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on the subject of Dartmoor. 
The Voice of Spring, perhaps the best-known and the best-loved of all her 
lyrics, was written early in the year 1823. In the latter part of the same 
year she published The Vespers of Palermo, a Tragedy, which was considered 
a failure; and in 1826 appeared her best poem, T'he Forest Sanctuary,^ which 
was brought out in conjunction with the Lays of Many Lands. Every suc- 
cessive year brought fresh proofs of her widely-extending fame. In 1828, 
having suffered the loss of her mother, — an affliction which went down into 
the very depths of her soul, — she removed to "Wavertree, near Liverpool, and 
soon gave to the world Lays of Leisure Hours, National Lyrics, and other 
poems. In 1829 she made a visit to Scotland, and was most cordially received 
by Sir "Walter Scott, Jeff'rey, and other distinguished literary characters of the 
Scottish metropolis. 2 

Early in 1830 she published her volume of Songs of the Affections, and in 
the month of June she accomplished a project which she had long had at 
heart, of making a visit to the lakes of Westmoreland and to the poet "Words- 
worth. On returning thence, she went to reside in Dublin, where her brother, 
Major Browne, was settled. She entered very little into the general society 
of Dublin, but devoted most of her time to the education of her children. Her 
health, however, was quite feeble, so that, in her own language, " the exertion 
of writing became quite irksome." Early in 1834 appeared her Hymns for 
Childhood, which was soon followed by Scenes and Hymns of Life, and both 
were noticed very favorably in the periodicals of the day.^ But her course 
of life was nearly run: she took cold, from being out too late in the evening; 
a fever succeeded; and she breathed her last, without a pain or struggle, 
on the 16th of May, 1835. Her remains were deposited in a vault beneath St. 
Anne's Church, Dublin, and over her grave some lines, from one of her own 
dirges, were inscribed :— 

"Calm on the bosom of thy God, 

Fair spirit ! rest thee now ! 
E'en while with us thy footsteps trod, 

His seal was on thy brow. 
Dust to its narrow house beneath ! 

Soul to its place on high ! 
They that have seen thy look in death 

No more may fear to die." 



1 This is a tale of a Protestant convert, who 
fled from the persecution of his native land 
(Spain) to America, taking with him his wife 
and child. The wife, deeply loving her hus- 
band, but not a convert to his faith, exhausted 
with previous anxiety and sorrow, dies at sea, 
and the husband and child reach their Forest 
Sanctuary in the New World, where the father 
recounts to the son the story of his persecutions, 
exile, and bereavement. 

2 In the Edinhurgh Review for October, 1829, 
appeared an article on the poetry of Mrs. He- 
mans, from the masterly pen of Jeffrey, who, 
with great delicacy and discrimination, touches 
upon the peculiar characteristics of her style. 
" Almost all her poems," writes this high au- 



thority, " are rich with fine descriptions, and 
studded over with images of visible beauty. 
But these are never idle ornaments: all her 
pomps have a meaning, and her flowers and 
her gems are arranged, as they are said to be 
among Eastern lovers, so as to speak the lan- 
guage of truth and passion." 

3 in reference to the notice of the Scenes 
and Hymns, she writes, " The volume is re- 
cognized as my best work, and the course it 
opens out called 'a noble path.' My heart is 
growing faint: — shall I have power given me 
to tread that way much farther ? I trust that 
God may make me submissive to his will, 
whatever that will may be." 



252 FELICIA HEMANS. 

Though in some particulars Mrs. Hemaus may be inferior to some of the 
female poets of the nineteenth century, — to Joanna Baillie, for instance, in 
vigor of conception, to Caroline Bowles in simple pathos, to Mary Howitt in 
fresh nature, or to Mrs. Browning in deep, philosophic thought and profound 
learning, — yet, as a female writer, influencing not only her own sex but the 
general mind, from the pure and elevated sentiments as well as the exceeding 
beauty of her poetry, especially of her lyrical pieces, she is undoubtedly en- 
titled to take very high rank among her contemporaries. Her great excellence 
has been acknowledged in our own country as well as in England. In her 
poetry, religious truth, moral purity, intellectual beauty, beautiful imagery, 
and melodious versification, all meet; and, while it addresses itself to the 
better feelings of our nature, it at the same time exalts the imagination and 
refines the taste. "Her forte," says a discriminating critic, ''lay in depicting 
whatever tends to beautify and embellish domestic life, by purifying the pas- 
sions and by sanctifying the afi"ections; making man an undying and un- 
quenchable spirit, and earth, his abode, a holy place." 

From the writings of one who has written so much and so well, it is difficult 
to know what to select and where to stop; but the following pieces will, it is 
believed, give a correct idea of her merits and her general style. 

HEBREW MOTHER. 

The rose was rich in bloom on Sharon's plain, 

When a young mother with her first-born thence 

Went up to Zion, for the boy was vow'd 

Unto tlie Temple-service ; — by the hand 

She led him, and her silent soul, the while, 

Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye 

Met her sweet serious glance, rejoiced to think 

That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers, 

To bring before her God. So pass'd they on, 

O'er .Judah's hills ; and wheresoe'er the leaves 

Of the broad sycamore made sounds at noon, 

Like lulling rain-drops, or the olive-boughs, 

With their cool dimness, cross'd tlie sultry Ijlue 

Of vSyria's heaven, she paused, that he might rest ; 

Yet from her own meek eyelids chased the sleep 

That weigh'd their dark fringe down, to sit and watch 

The crimson deepening o'er his cheek's repose, 

As at a red flower's heart. — And where a fount 

Lay like a twilight-star 'midst palmy shades. 

Making its banks green gems along the wild, 

There too she linger'd, from the diamond wave 

Drawing bright water for his rosy lips, 

And softly parting clusters of jet curls 

To bathe his brow. At last the Fane was reach'd, 

The Earth's One Sanctuary, — and rapture hush'd 

Her bosom, as before her, through the day, 

It rose, a mountain of wliite marble, steep'd 

In light, like floating gold. But when that hour 

Waned to the farewell moment, when the boy 

Lifted, through rainbow-gleaming tears, his eye 

Beseechingly to hers, and half in fear 

Turn'd from the white-robed priest, and round her arm 



FELICIA HEMANS. 253 

Clung as the ivy clings, — the deep spring-tide 
Of Nature then swell'd high, and o'er her child 
Bending, her soul broke forth, in mingled sounds 
Of weeping and sad song. " Alas !" she cried, 

" Alas ! my boy, thy gentle grasp is on me, 
The bright tears quiver in thy pleading eyes, 

And now fond thoughts arise. 
And silver cords again to earth have won me; 
And like a vine thou claspest my full heart : — • 

How shall I hence depart ? 

'' How the lone paths retrace where thou wert playing 
So late, along the mountains, at my side ? 

And I, in joyous pride, 
By every place of flowers my course delaying 
Wove, e'en as pearls, the lilies round thy hair, 

Beholding thee so fair ! 

" And, oh, the home Avhence thy bright smile hath parted, 
Will it not seem as if the sunny day 

Turn'd from its door away ? 
While through its chambers wandering, weary-hearted, 
I languish for thy voice, which past me still 

AVent like a singing rill ? 

"Under the palm-trees thou no more shalt meet me. 
When from the fount at evening I return, 

With the full water-urn ; 
Nor will thy sleep's low dove-like breathings greet me, 
As midst the silence of the stars I wake, 

And watch for thy dear sake. 

"And thou, will slumber's dewy cloud fall round thee. 
Without tliy mother's hand to smooth thy bed ? 

Wilt thou not vainly spread 
Thine arms, when darkness as a vail hath wound thee. 
To fold my neck, and lift up, in thy fear, 

A cry which none shall hear ? 

" What have I said, my child ? — Will He not hear thee. 
Who the young ravens heareth from their nest ? 

Shall He not guard thy rest. 
And, in the hush of holy midnight near thee, 
Breathe o'er thy soul, and fill its dreams with joy? 

Thou shalt sleep soft, my boy ! 

" I give thee to thy God, — the God that gave thee, 
A wellspring of deep gladness to my heart ! 

And precious as thou art. 
And pure as dew of Hermon, He shall have thee. 
My own, my beautiful, my undefiled ! 

And thou shalt be His child. 

" Therefore, farewell ! — I go, my soul may fail me, 
As the hart panteth for the water-brooks. 

Yearning for thy sweet looks, — 
But thou, my first-born, droop not, nor bewail me ; 
Thou in the Shadow of the Kock shalt dwell. 

The Kock of Strength.—'' Farewell !" 
22 



•254 FELICIA HEMANS. 



THE STRANGER'S HEART. 

The stranger's heart ! oh, wound it not ! 
A yearning anguish is its lot ; 
In the green shadow of thy tree, 
The stranger finds no rest with thee. 

Thou think'st the vine's low rustling leaves 
Glad music round thy household eaves ; 
To him that sound hath sorrow's tone, — 
The stranger's heart is with his own. 

Thou think'st thy children's laughing play 
A lovely sight at fall of day ; 
Then are the stranger's thoughts oppress'd, — 
His mother's voice comes o'er his breast. 

Thou think'st it sweet, when friend with friena 
Beneath one roof in prayer may blend ; 
Then doth the stranger's eye grow dim, — 
Far, far are those who pray'd with him. 

Thy hearth, thy home, thy vintage land, — 
The voices of thy kindred band, — 
Oh, midst them all, when blest thou art, 
Deal gently with the stranger's heart. 

THE HOUR OF DEATH. 

Leaves have their time to fall, 
And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath, 

And stars to set, — but all, 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death ! 

Day is for mortal care, 
Eve for glad meetings round the joyous hearth, 

Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of prayer, — 
But all for thee, thou Mightiest of the earth. 

The banquet hath its hour, 
Its feverish hour of mirth, and song, and wine ; 

There comes a day for grief's o'erwhelming power, 
A time for softer tears, — but all are thine. 

Youth and the opening rose 
May look like things too glorious for decay. 

And smile at thee, — but thou art not of those 
That wait the ripen' d bloom to seize their prey. 

Leaves have their time to fall, 
And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath, 

And stars to set, — but all. 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death ! 

We know when moons shall wane. 
When summer-birds from far shall cross the sea. 

When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain, — 
But who shall teach us when to look for thee ? 



FELICIA REMANS. 



255 



Is it when Spring's first gale 
Comes forth to Avhisper wliere the violets lie? 

Is it Avhen roses in our paths grow pale ? — 
They have one season, — all are ours to die ! 

Thou art where hillows foam, 
Thou art where music melts upon the air; 

Thou art around us in our peaceful home ; 
And the world calls us forth, — and thou art there. 

Thou art where friend meets friend. 
Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest, — 

Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend 
The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest. 

Leaves have their time to fall, 
And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath, 

And stars to set, — but all. 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death ! 



THE HOUR OF PRAYER. 



Child, amid the flowers at play, 
While the red light fades away; 
Mother, with thine earnest eye, 
Ever following silently ; 
Father, by the breeze of eve 
Call'd thy harvest work to leave. 
Pray, ere yet the dark hours be, — 
Lift the heart and bend tie knee ! 

Traveller, in the stranger's land. 
Far from thine own household band: 
Mourner, haunted by the tone 
Of a voice from this world gone ; 



Captive, in whose narrow* cell 
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell ; 
Sailor, on the darkening sea, — 
Lift the heart and bend the kneel 

Warrior, that from battle won, 
Breathest now at set of sun ; 
Woman, o'er the lowly slain 
Weeping on his burial-plain ; 
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh, 
Kindred by one holy tie. 
Heaven's first star alike ye see, — 
Lift the heart and bend the knee ! 



BRING FLOWERS. 

Bring flovrers, young flowers, for the festal board. 

To wreathe the cup ere the wine is pour'd : 

Bring flowers ! they are springing in wood and vale : 

Their breath floats out on the southern gale ; 

And the touch of the sunbeam hath waked the rose, 

To deck the hall where the bright wine flows. 

Bring flowers to the captive's lonely cell, — 

They have tales of the joyous woods to tell ; 

Of the free blue streams, and the glowing sky, 

And the bright world shut from his languid eye : 

They will bear him a thought of the sunny hours, 

And the dream of his youth, — bring him flowers, wild flowers. 

Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear ! 
They were born to blush in her shining hair. 
She is leaving the home of her childhood's mirth, 
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth ; 
Her place is now by another's side, — 
Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride ! 



256 FELICIA IIIJMAXS. 

Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed, 

A crown for the brow of tlie early dead ! 

For this through its leaves hath the white rose burst. 

For this in the woods was the violet nursed ! 

Though they smile in vain for what once was ours, 

They are love's last gift, — bring ye floAvers, pale flowers ! 

Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer, — 

They are nature's oflering, their place is there ! 

They speak of hope to the fainting heart, 

With a voice of promise they come and part ; 

They sleep in dust through the wintry hours. 

They break forth in glory, — bring flowers, bright flowers ! 

EVENING PRAYER AT A GIRLS' SCHOOL. 

Now, in thy youth, beseech of Ilim 

"Who giveth. upbraideth not, 
That his light in thy heart become not dim, 

And his love be unforgot; 
And thy God, in the darkest of days, will be 
Greenness, and beauty, and strength to thee. 

Beknaud Barton. 

Hush ! 'tis a holy hour, — the quiet room 

Seems like a temple, while yon soft lamp sheds 

A faint and starry radiance tlirongh the gloom 
And the sweet stillness down on fair young heads, 

"With all their clustering locks untouch'd by care. 

And bow'd, as flowers are bow'd with lught, in prayer. 

Gaze on, — 'tis lovely ! — childhood's lip and cheek, 
Mantling beneath its earnest brow of thought : 

Gaze, — yet what seest thou in those fair, and meek, 
And fragile things, as but for sunshine wrouglit? 

Thou seest wliat grief must nurture for the sky. 

What death must fashion for eternity ! 

O joyous creatures ! that will sink to rest 
Lightly, when those pure orisons are done, 

As birds with slumber's honey-dew opprest. 
Midst the dim folded leaves, at set of sun, — 

Lift up your hearts ! though yet no sorrow lies 

Dark in the rummer-heaven of those clear eyes. 

Though fresh within your breast the untroubled springs 
Of hope make melody where'er ye tread. 

And o'er your sleep bright shadows, from the wings 
Of spirits visiting but youth, be spread ; 

Yet in those flute-like voices, mingling low, 

Is woman's tenderness, — how soon her wo ! 

Her lot is on you, — silent tears to weep, 

And patient smiles to wear through suflering's hour, 

And sumless riches, from aflection's deep, 
To pour on broken reeds, — a wasted shower ! 

And to make idols, and to And them clay. 

And to bewail that worship, — therefore pray ! 



DRAKE. 257 

Her lot is on you,— to be found untired, 

Watching the stars out by the bed of pain, 
With a pale cheek, and yet a brow inspired. 

And a true heart of hope, though hope be vain ; 
Meekly to bear Avith wrong, to cheer decay, 
And, oh ! to love through all things,— therefore pray ! 

And take the thought of this calm vesper-time, _ 
With its low murmuring sounds and silvery light, 

On through the dark days fading from their prime. 
As a sweet dew to keep your souls from blight ! 

Earth will forsake,— oh ! happy to have given 

The unbroken heart's first fragrance unto Heaven. 

On Sunday, April 26, she dictated to her brother the following Sundat/ Sonnet, 
-the last strains of the Sweet Singer: — 

"How many blessed groups this hour are bending. 

Through England's primrose meadow-paths, their way 
Toward spire and tower, 'midst shadoAvy elms ascending. 

Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallow' d day I 
* * * * I may not tread 

With them those pathways, — to the feverish bed 

Of sickness bound ; yet, O my God ! I bless 
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace has fill'd 
My chasten'd heart, and all its throbbings still'd 

To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness." 



NATHAN DRAKE, 1766-1836. 

Dr. Nathax Drake, the distinguished essayist, was born in the city of York, 
on the 15th of January, 1766, and, after completing his collegiate and pro- 
fessional education at the University of Edinburgh, finally settled at Had- 
leigh, in the county of Suffolk, in 1792, where he practised as a physician for 
forty-four years. In 1807 he married Miss Eose, of Brenttenham, in Suffolk, 
by whom he had several children, three of whom died young. He himself 
departed this life on the 7th of June, 1836, in his seventy-first year. 

As a medical practitioner, Dr. Drake was deservedly respected and esteemed 
by his professional brethren for his courtesy and skill, and yet more endeared 
to all whom he attended, by the urbanity of his manners and the unaffected 
kindness of his heart. " It may be said of him," remarks a contemporary,^ 
" with perfect truth, that in a professional and literary career of near half a 
century, amid all the turmoils of mere party strife and contentious rivalry, 
he so pursued the even tenor of his way as never to have lost, by estrange- 
ment, a single friend, or made one enemy." 

But it is with the literary character of Dr. Drake that we have mainly to do in 
this work; and I must say that, were I called to name the writer in the lighter 



1 Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1836, p. 216. 
22* 



258 



DRAKE. 



walks of English literature who, by his essays and ingenious illustrations 
of our standard authors, is most calculated to refine the taste and to excite an 
ardent thirst for reading and literary pursuits, I think it would be Dr. Nathan 
Drake.^ His Literary Hours, in three volumes, contains a series of most in- 
structive papers upon various authors and subjects of a literary character; 
while his Essays on the Tatler, Guardian, Spectator, Rambler, and Idler, embody 
a mass of interesting and valuable information such as can nowhere else, 
to my knowledge, be found in our language. Another of his valuable works 
is entitled Shakspeare and his Times: this includes a biography of the poet, 
criticisms on his genius, a new chronology of his plays, and throws much- 
light upon the manners, customs, amusements, superstitions, poetry, and ele- 
gant literature of that age. His Winter Nights, in two volumes, Evenings in 
Autumn, two volumes, and Mornings in Spring, two volumes, contain essays 
of a miscellaneous character, — critical, narrative, biographical, and descrip- 
tive. They are pleasing and elegant in their style, and evince great deli- 
cacy and discrimination of taste, unvarying kindness of heart, and purity 
of moral feeling. In all his criticisms he seemed to look chiefly at Avhat was 
beautiful or pleasing, deeming it quite as much the pi'ovince of the critic to 
hold tip the beauties of an author for imitation and admiration, as to detect 
his faults and expose them for censure. Indeed, both as an author and as a 
man, Dr. Drake was kindness, courtesy, and candor personified; and no one 
can read his eminently instructive writings without feeling that they are the 
productions of a mind pure, benevolent, and well stored, and distinguished 
for its refined and delicate taste.^ 



THE 310 RAL AND LITERARY CHARACTER 
WRITINGS. 



OF ADDISON'S 



The great object whieli Addison ever steadily held in view, and 
to which his style, his criticism, his humor and imagination are 
alike subservient, was the increase of religious, moral, and social 
virtue. Perhaps to the writings of no individual, of any age or 
nation, if we except the result of inspiration, have morality and 
rational piety been more indebted than to those which form the 
periodical labors of our author. ^ * * 

On education and the domestic virtues, and on the duties 
incumbent on father, husband, wife, and child, the precepts of 
our author are numerous, just, and cogent, and delivered in that 
sweet, insinuating style and manner which have rendered him 
beyond comparison the most useful moralist this country ever 
possessed. The imagery by which he indicates the effect and 
force of education is singularly happy and apjDropriate ; the hint 
is taken from Aristotle, who affirms that in a block of marble 



1 Since writing the above, I have been 
pleased to have my opinion confirmed by a 
fine scholar and an interesting writer. Says 
Gillies, in his Literary Veteran, " In 1803 I 
got a bright new book, fresh from the press in 
those days, on which I still reflect with plea- 
sure, namely, Drake's Literary Hours. It be- 
came my favorite companion for years after- 



ward, and it was this work, more than all 
otliers, which at that early age fixed my af- 
fections on literary pursuits." 

2 " We have been surprised and mortified to 
notice the shameful ignorance prevailing in 
America respecting the publications of this 
eminent writer." — Allibone's Critical Diction- 
ary. 



DRAKE. 259 

the statue which the sculptor ultimately produces is merely con- 
cealed, and that the effect of his art is only to remove the sur- 
rounding matter which hides the beauteous figure from the view. 
"What sculpture is to a block of marble," says Addison, "edu- 
cation is to a human soul. We see it sometimes only begun to 
be chipped ; sometimes rough-hewn, and but just sketched into a 
human figure ; sometimes we see the man appearing distinctly in 
all his limbs and features ; sometimes we find the figure wrought 
up to a great elegancy ; but seldom meet with any to which the 
hand of a Phidias or Praxiteles could not give several nice 
touches and finishings."^ * * * 

Addison well knew that the best ingredients in the cup of 
human life were regulated desires and subdued expectations ; 
and that he would be little liable to disappointment, and most 
able to bear up under affliction, who looked forward not to this, 
but to a future life for what is usually called happiness. " The 
utmost we can hope for in this w^orld," he observes, " is content- 
ment; if we aim at any thing higher, we shall meet wdtli 
nothing but grief and disappointment. A man sllould direct 
all his studies and endeavors at making himself easy now and 
happy hereafter:"^ a truth which cannot be too strongly or fre- 
quently impressed upon the mind, and to which, in addition to 
what I have already said upon the same subject, in my observa- 
tions on Steele, I am now willing to add the authority and ex- 
perience of Addison. 

" For, trust me, one protecting shed, 
And nightly peace, and daily bread, 

Is all that life can give." — Langhorne. 



The piety of Addison is founded on a clear and rational view 
of the attributes of the Deity and of the doctrines of Christianity ; 
and in the Spectator more especially he has seized every oppor- 
tunity of supporting and illustrating the great and momentous 
truths of natural and revealed religion. His essays on " the Su- 
preme Being,"^ on the " Omnipresence of the Deity,"* and on the 
" Immortality of the Soul,"^ exhibit the power and goodness of 
the Creator in a manner at once sublime and philosophic. I con- 
sider, indeed, the paper on " Omnipresence and Omniscience" as 
one of the most perfect, impressive, and instructive pieces of com- 
position that ever flowed from the pen of an uninspired moralist.* 

Of the literary character of Addison, the preceding essays have 
attempted to delineate the leading features, and will, it is pro- 
bable, impress upon the mind of the reader a very high idea of 

1 Spectator, No. 215. 2 ibia., No. 163. 3 lUd., No. 531. 4 lUd., No. 565. 

5 Ibid., No. 111. 6 See Compendium of English Literature, p. 361. 



260 DRAKE. 

its excellence and utility. To him, in the first place, may we 
ascribe the formation of a style truly classical and pure, whose 
simplicity and grace have not yet been surpassed, and which, 
presenting a model of unprecedented elegance, laid the founda- 
tion for a general and increasing attention to the beauty and har- 
mony of composition. 

His critical j^oivers were admirably adapted to awaken and in- 
form the public mind ; to teach the general principles by which 
excellence may be attained ; and, above all, to infuse a relish for 
the noblest productions of taste and genius. 

In humor, no man in this country, save Shakspeare, has ex- 
celled him : he possessed the faculty of an almost intuitive dis- 
crimination of what was ludicrous and characteristic in each 
individual, and, at the same time, the most hapjjy facility in so 
tinting and grouping his paintings, that, while he never over- 
stepped the modesty of nature, the result was alike rich in comic 
effect, in warmth of coloring, and in originality of design. 

Though his poetry, it must be confessed, is not remarkable for 
the energies of fancy, the tales, visions, and allegories dispersed 
through his periodical writings make abundant recompense for 
the defect, and very amply prove that, in the conception and 
execution of these exquisite pieces, no talent of the genuine bard, 
except that of versification, lay dormant or unemployed. 

It is, however, the appropriate, the transcendent, praise of 
Addison that he steadily and uniformly, and in a manner pecu- 
liarly his own, exerted these great qualities in teaching and dis- 
seminating a love for morality and religion. He it was who, 
following the example of the divine Socrates, first stripped philo- 
sophy in this island of her scholastic garb, and bade her, clothed 
in the robes of elegant simplicity, allure and charm the multi- 
tude. He saw his countrymen become better as they became 
wiser ; he saw them, through his instructions, feel and own the 
beauty of holiness and virtue ; and for this, we may affirm, pos- 
terity, however distant or refined, shall revere and bless his 
memory. 

CHARACTER OF DR. JOHNSON. 

Let us now recapitulate the various channels into which the 
efforts of Dr. Johnson were directed. 

As a Poet he cannot claim a station in the first rank. He is a 
disciple of Pope ; all that strong sentiment, in nervous language 
and harmonious metre, can effect, he possesses in a high degree. 
We may further affirm that his " London," his " Vanity of Human 
Wishes," his " Prologue on the Opening of Drury-Lane Theatre," 
and his " Stanzas on the Death of Levett," will never die. 

To excellence as a Bibliographer he had many pretensions : 
strength of memory, an insatiable love of books, and a most extra- 



DRAKE. 



261 



ordinary facility in acquiring an intimacy with their contents. 
What he has produced in this department is not of much extent, 
but it is well performed. 

His merits as a Biographer are so prominent as to be beyond 
all dispute. His Lives of Savage, of Cowley, of Dryden, and of 
Pope are masterpieces, which, in many respects, can fear no 
rivalry. An intimate acquaintance w^ith the human heart, and 
the most skilful introduction of moral and monitory precept, 
combine to render many of his productions under this head un- 
speakably valuable to the dearest interests of mankind. It must 
not be concealed, however, that they are occasionally deformed 
by his prejudices, his aversions, and his constitutional gloom. 

In his character as an Essayist, though essentially different in 
mode from, he ranks next in value to, Addison. Pie lashes the 
vices rather than ridicules the follies of mankind ; and his wit 
and humor are by no means so delicate and finely shaded as 
those of his predecessor. In force, in dignity, in splendor of elo- 
quence, in correctness of style, melody of cadence, and rotundity 
of period, in precision of argument and perspicuity of inference, 
he is much superior to the author of the Spectator; but, on the 
other hand, he must yield the palm in ease and sweetness, in 
simplicity and vivacity. The three great faults, indeed, of John- 
son as an essayist are, a style too uniformly labored and majestic 
for the purposes of a popular essay, a want of variety in the 
choice of subjects, and, in his survey of human life, a tone too 
gloomy and austere, too querulous and desponding. The Rambler 
is, however, notwithstanding these defects, a w^ork that, in vigor 
of execution and comprehensiveness of utility, will not easily be 
paralleled ; it is, in fact, a vast treasury of moral precept and 
ethic instruction. 

The reputation of Johnson as a Philologer appears to be some- 
what on the decline. The attention which has been lately paid 
to lexicography has laid open many omissions and defects in his 
Dictionary ; but it should be considered that a work of this kind 
must necessarily be defective ; and that with our author rests the 
sole merit of having chalked out a plan which, if not filled up by 
his own execution, must, there is every reason to think, be closely 
followed by his emulators, to attain the perfection at which he 
aimed.^ 



1 Dr. Drake does not here, I think, do full 
justice to Dr. Johnson as a Lexicographer. 
We must bear in mind that his great work 
was the first of the kind that deserved to be 
called a Dictionai-y of the English Language, 
and that all succeeding philologists have, 
more or less, built upon him as a foundation. 
I have the first edition of his Dictionary, 1755, 
two volumes, folio, and I never consult it 
without being amazed at the gigantic labors, 



wonderful learning, and extended research 
of the author. True, he has allowed his pre- 
judices to tincture a few of his definitions, 
while others are so scholastic as to be really 
of little practical utility. As an instance of 
this, I may give his definition of Net-work: 
" Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal 
distances, with interstices between the inter- 
sections." As an instance of the former, take 
Oats: " A grain, which in England is generally 



262 



DRAKE. 



When we consider Johnson under the appellation of a Novelist, 
it is impossible not to regret that " Rasselas" is the only work on 
Avhich he can properly found a claim to the title. Yet we must 
add that, if in beauty of imagery, sublimity of sentiment, and 
knowledge of men and manners, too much praise cannot be given 
to this philosophic tale, it is obligatory on us to confess that it is 
greatly deficient in two essential qualifications of a legitimate 
novel, plot and incident. " Rasselas," indeed, is merely the 
vehicle of the author's opinions on human life, and which, we 
are sorry to remark, partake of the same gloom which darkens 
the pages of the Rambler. 

A very few lines will sketch our author's pretensions to the 
honors of a Commentator. The plan of his edition of Shakspeare 
has been much and justly admired ; and no greater proof can be 
given of its excellence than that every subsequent annotator has 
pursued the path which he had laid open. He was himself, how- 
ever, too indolent, and too deficient in the very line of reading 
which he had recommended for the illustration of his bard, to 
carry his own instructions into effect; his edition, therefore, 
though it has been the parent of the best that we possess, is now 
of little value. 

Not much, I am afraid, can be said in favor of our author as a 
Politician. He was at one time a most furious Jacobite, and his 
tenets at all times, with regard to legislation, were vehement, con- 
fined, and partial ; so arbitrary, indeed, as to be frequently repug- 
nant to the spirit of the British Constitution. He was, however, 
a high-flown Tory on principle ; and his political pamphlets, 
though deficient in candor, disjDlay considerable subtlety in j^oint 
of argument, and much energy and perspicuity of style. 

With a few deductions for prejudices which he had early im- 
bibed, his merits as a Tourist will appear great and unclouded. 
His object was to analyze and compare men, maimers, and modes 
of life ; and his volume is at once elegant, philosophic, and in- 
genious. 

That he is entitled, in the most honorable sense of the term, to 
the appellation of a Critic, those who shall merely peruse his 
Preface to Shakspeare, and his Lives of Cowley, Dryden, and 
Pope, will not probably deny. Since the days of Quintilian, in- 
deed, no better specimens of criticism than these have been given 
to the world. How highly is it to be lamented then that, prose- 
cuting the study of his Lives, we find the residue for the most 
part tinctured and deformed by relentless prejudices ; by party- 
zeal and unfeeling dogmatism ; by a spirit systematically hostile 



given to horses, but in Scotland supports the 
people." Also, Pension: " An allowance made 
to any one without an equivalent. In England 
it is generally understood to mean pay given 



to a state hireling for treason to his country." 
But in subsequent editions, when he himself 
had received a pension, this definition Vas no 
little modified. 



DRAKE. 263 

to received opinion, and unfriendly to contemporary merit ! With 
all these defects, however, and they are strikingly prominent, 
great has been the benefit derived to elegant literature from the 
publication of his Critical Biograj)hy. It has established an era 
in the Republic of Letters ; it has set an example in this country, 
which has been assiduously followed, of recording the events 
attendant on the lives, the studies, and publications of literary 
men ; and it has given birth to a widely-extending taste for critical 
disquisitions. 

From the usual tenor of his style, it was not to be expected that 
our great moralist would excel as an Epistolary Writer. The 
letters of Johnson, however, though sometimes not entirely free 
from his customary elaboration, are, in general, graceful, easy, 
and perspicuous. They fully develop the character of the man ; 
some are gloomy, some pathetic and beautifully moral ; others 
lively, domestic, and interesting. If they cannot be said to rival 
the letters of Cowper, yet will they still take their station among 
the best epistolary collections in our language. 

The opinions and j^rinciples of the doctor as a Theologian are 
chiefly to be gathered from his conversation, as preserved by Mr. 
Boswell, and from his prayers. He appears from these to have 
been a zealous High-churchman, with a strong bias toward some 
of the Koman Catholic tenets. His piety and devotion were warm 
and sincere ; and his prayers, the language of which is altogether 
plain, simple, and unadorned, teach us that his faith, his humility, 
and gratitude were great. From an ardent desire of further evi- 
dence with regard to the state of the departed, he was solicitous 
to ascertain the possibility of the reappearance of the dead. His 
anxiety on this subject rendered him superstitious, though not 
credulous ; for he was, in a very extraordinary degree, minute 
and cautious in examining the suj^posed jDroofs, and was more 
than once instrumental in detecting their fallacy, and exposing 
the arts of imposture. To many of his Sermons much praise is 
due for their perspicuity of style, their felicity of illustration, and 
their sound practical morality. 

We may, indeed, close this summary with the affirmation that, 
if Addison be excepted, no writer of the eighteenth century can 
be said to have contributed so highly, so coiDiously, and so per- 
manently, to the improvement of our literature and language as 
Johnson. Whether considered as a Biographer, an Essayist, a 
Lexicogra23her, or a Critic, he is alike entitled to the gratitude 
of his country and of mankind. 



2G4 BRYDGES. 



SIR EGERTON BRYDGES, 17 62-1887. 

Samuel Egerton Brydges, the distinguished antiquary in English Literature, 
was the son of Edward Brydges, Esq., of "Wootton Court, Kent, and was born 
at that place on the 30th of November, 1762. After the usual preparatory 
studies, he- entered Queen's College, Cambridge, in October, 1780, with the 
character of a good classical scholar, who excelled in the composition of Latin 
as well as English poetry. But he attended very little to the regular studies 
of the university, abandoning himself to the luxurious enjoyment of English 
poetry and belles-lettres. He therefore left Cambridge without a degree, and 
in the summer of 17B2 entered the Middle Temple. In November, 1787, he 
was called to the bar; but, according to his own acknowledgment, he never 
had sufficient perseverance to apply himself to the study of the law. 

Soon after his marriage, in 1786, he took a house in London, where he re- 
Bided four years, when he purchased Denton, an estate near his native place 
in Kent, and removed thither. This was the beginning of great and pro- 
tracted pecuniary embarrassments, which attended him through life. He had 
no knowledge whatever of business or of managing an estate; expended many 
thousand pounds in repairs and improvements which brought him no return ; 
and was cheated by those to whom he intrusted the management of his afi'airs. 
So early did those embarrassments commence which imbittered his latter 
days. 

In 1790, after the death of the last Duke of Chandos, he preferred a claim to 
the barony of \)handos, alleging his descent from a younger .son of the first 
Brydges, who bore that title. The consideration of this claim was long pro- 
crastinated, but at length, in June, 1803, the House of Peers pronounced its 
decision, "that the petitioner had not made out his claim to the title and dignity 
of Baron Chandos." This decision had a very unhappy influence upon him 
through life, and his disappointment, chagrin, and querulousness appeared, in 
some form or other, in most of his subsequent publications. In 1810 he removed 
from Denton to his son's house at Lee Priory, near Canterbury, and in 1812 
obtained a seat in Parliament, where he distinguished himself by procuring 
some important improvements in the law of copyright. Upon the dissolution 
of that Parliament, in 1818, he withdrew to the continent, in consequence of 
his pecuniary embarrassments, and resided in Paris and Italy, but mostly at 
or near Geneva. Here he was constantly engaged in writing and editing books, 
until the time of his death, which took place at Campagne Gros Jean, on the 
8th of September, 1837, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.^ Sir Egerton was 
twice married; by his first wife he had two sons and three daughters; by the 
Becond, five sons and five daughters. 

To few authors of the present century is English literature more deeply 



^ Of the latter period of his life he thus 
writes in his Autobiography: " Solitude is no 
terror to me, and so tar, therefore, I am inde- 
pendent of the world's injuries. I keep my 
own hours; the little sleep I take is by day; 
and I toil through the long nights at Ihe lamp. 
Thus I work without interruption in the re- 
pose of profound silence. Imagination sup- 
plies the want of those material objects which \ 



are vested in the mantle of darkness. Thus 
existence is even delightful to me in feeble 
old age, and in the midst of sorrows, priva- 
tions, indignities, and dangers. These solemn 
times of night, which others lose in sleep, are 
not lost to me ; and thus I add to the duration 
of life beyond others of the same number of 
years." 



BBYDGES. 265 

indebted than to Sir Egerton Brydges, and in no one can be found finer pass- 
ages of just thought, genial and tasteful criticism, pure and ennobling senti- 
ment, and beautiful and eloquent writing. The branches of literature to which 
he chiefly devoted himself were poetry, romance, the republication of old Eng- 
lish poetry, and genealogy. It would be difficult to enumerate all his works; 
but the following are the principal. 

His first publication was a volume of Sonnets, in 1785 : some of these possess 
great merit, particularly one on Echo and Silence, which has been warmly 
praised by Wordsworth. In 1792 appeared Mary de Clifford, a novel; in 1798, 
another, entitled Arthur Fitz Albini; and in 1800, Theatrum, Poetarum Angli- 
canorum, being a new edition, with additions, of a work under the same title 
by Edward Phillips, nephew of Milton. In 1805 he commenced that curious 
and most valuable bibliographical and critical work, the Censura Liter-aria, 
which was continued to the year 1809, forming ten volumes octavo. In 
1814 he published Occasional Poems; in 1818, Excerpta Tudoriana, or Extracts 
from Elizabethan Literature; in 1821, Letters from the Continent; in 1832, Lake 
of Geneva, in two volumes; and in 1834, Imaginary Biography, a work in which 
the literary characters of many English scholars are drawn with great fidelity, 
taste, and discrimination. In the same year appeared The Autobiography, 
Times, Opinions, and Contemporaries of Sir Egerton Brydges. He was also a 
large contributor to periodical publications, particularly to The Gentleman's 
Magazine, on genealogy and antiquity. Besides these works, he edited an 
edition of Milton's Poetical Works, enriched with his own tasteful and dis- 
criminating remarks, with a selection of notes from the best commentators, 
and with a life of the great poet prefixed. 

It has been most truthfully remarked that the student of English literature 
is deeply indebted to Sir Egerton Brydges "for valuable accessions to our 
knowledge of our earliest writers, — for fine and just trains of poetical criticism, 
— for some touching and elegant poetry, — and for a few ingenious tales of 
fiction." Indeed, I know of no one who has written so much himself, and 
who at the same time has done so much to bring forward the writings of 
others, — to bring out the hidden, to revive the forgotten, and to honor the 
neglected but true genius. We are deeply indebted to him, too, for his labors 
of love upon our great Epic; for no critic, not excepting Addison himself, has 
had a more just appreciation of the genius of Milton, or has criticized him with 
truer taste or sounder judgment.^ 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

It was now resolved that Sir Walter should be brought to the 
bar of the King's Bench by habeas corpus, and execution awarded 
upon his former sentence. He was accordingly brought up, on 
October 28, 1618, though taken from his bed under the affliction 
of an ague fit. Execution was accordingly granted ; and he was 
delivered to the sherifis of Middlesex, and conveyed to the Gate 
House, near the Palace-yard. His heroism did not forsake him. 
To some, who deplored his misfortunes, he observed, with calm- 



1 Read Edinburgh Review, lix. 439, and American Quarterly, xvi. 457. 
23 



266 BRYDGES, 

ness, that " the world itself is but a larger prison, out of which 
some are daily selected for execution." 

On Thursday, October 29th, he was conducted to the scaffold, 
in Old Palace-yard. His countenance was cheerful; and he 
said, " I desire to be borne withal, for this is the third day of my 
fever ; and if I shall show any weakness, I beseech you to attri- 
bute it to my malady ; for this is the hour in which it was wont 
to come." He then addressed the spectators in a long speech, 
which ended thus : — 

"And now I entreat you to join with me in prayer to the great 
God of Heaven, whom I have grievously ofiended, being a man 
full of all vanity, and have lived a sinful life, in all sinful call- 
ings, — for I have been a soldier, a captain, a sea-captain, and a 
courtier, which are courses of wickedness and vice, — that God 
would forgive me, and cast away my sins from me, and that he 
would receive me into everlasting life. So I take my leave of 
you all, making my peace with God." 

When he bade farewell to his friends, he said, " I have a long 
journey to go, and therefore I will take my leave." Having 
asked the executioner to show him the axe, which the execu- 
tioner hesitated to do, he said, " I prithee let me see it ! Dost 
thou think 1 am afraid of it?" He then took hold of it, felt the 
edge, and, smiling, said to the sheriff, " This is a sharp medicine; 
but it is a physician for all evils." He forgave the executioner; 
and, being asked which way he would lay himself on the block, 
he answered, " So the heart be right, it is no matter which way 
the head lies." At two strokes his head was taken off, without 
the least shrink or motion of his body. * * * 

If there were no other blots in King James's reign, Raleigh's 
death alone would render it intolerable to every generous and 
reflecting mind. When I consider what sort of talents and 
conduct covered Cecil's grave with wealth and honors, while 
those of Raleigh led him to the scaffold, and his posterity to 
extinction in poverty and ruin, my heart bursts with indignation 
and horror ! 

Raleigh's mind appears to have been characterized by bold- 
ness, and freedom from nice scruples, either in thought or action. 

He possessed all the various faculties of the mind in such ^mple 
degrees that, to whichever of them he had given exclusive or un- 
proportionate cultivation, in that he must have highly excelled. 
There are so many beautiful lines in the poem prefixed to 
Spenser's Faerie Queene, beginning Metliought I saw,^ &c., that it 
is clear he was capable of attaining a high place among poetical 
writers. 

Do I pronounce Raleigh a poet? Not, perhaps, in the judg- 

1 See this poem in Compendium of English Literature, 



BRYDGES. 267 

ment of a severe criticism, Raleigh, in his better days, was too 
much occupied in action to have cultivated all the powers of a 
poet; which require solitude and perpetual meditation, and a 
refinement of sensibility, such as intercourse with business and 
the world deadens. But perhaps it will be pleaded that his 
long years of imprisonment gave him leisure for meditation more 
than enough. It has been beautifully said by Lovelace that — 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage," 

SO long as the mind is free. But broken spirits and indescribable 
injuries and misfortunes do not agree with the fervor required by 
the muse. Hope, that " sings of promised pleasure," could never 
visit him in his dreary bondage ; and ambition, whose lights had 
hitherto led him through difficulties and dangers and sufferings, 
must now have kept entirely aloof from one whose fetters disabled 
him to follow as a votary in her train. Images of rural beauty, 
quiet, and freedom might, perhaps, have added, by the contrast, 
to the poignancy of his present painful situation ; and he might 
rather prefer the severity of mental labor in unravelling the 
dreary and comfortless records of perplexing history in remote 
ages of war and bloodshed. 

We have no proof that Raleigh possessed the copious, vivid, 
and creative powers of Spenser ; nor is it probable that any cul- 
tivation would have brought forth from him fruit equally rich. 
But in his poetry, I think we can perceive some traits of at- 
traction and excellence which perhaps even Spenser wanted. If 
less diversified than that gifted bard, he would, I think, have 
sometimes been more forcible and sublime. His images would 
have been more gigantic, and his reflections more daring. With 
all his mental attention keenly bent on the busy state of existing 
things in political society, the range of his thought had been 
lowered down to practical wisdom ; but other habits of intellectual 
exercise, excursions into the ethereal fields of fiction, and con- 
verse with the spirits which inhabit those upper regions, would 
have given a grasp and a color to his conceptions as magnificent 
as the fortitude of his soul. 

His " History of the World" proves the extent of his know- 
ledge and learning and the profundity of his opinions : and this 
written with a broken spirit, in prison, and under the pining 
health produced by close air and want of exercise and every 
cheering comfort. How grand must have been his fiery feelings 
in the high hope of enterprise, bounding over the ocean, and 
with new worlds opening before him ! Well might Spenser call 
him " The Shepherd of the Ocean." 

Raleigh was, above other men, one who had a head to design, 
a heart to resolve, and a hand to execute. He lived in an age 



268 



BRYDGES. 



of great men in every department ; but, taking a union of 
splendid qualities, he was the first of that most brilliant and 
heroic epoch. He was not a poet of the order of Spenser and 
Shakspeare ; but in what other gift and acquirement was he not 
first? 

JOHN MILTON.^ 

Of this " greatest of great men," the private traits and whole 
life were congenial to his poetry. Men of narrow feeling will say 
that his political writings contradict this congeniality. His politics 
were, no doubt, violent and fierce ; but it cannot be doubted that 
they were conscientious. He lived at a crisis of extraordinary 
public agitation, when all the principles of government were 
moved to their very foundations, and when there was a general 
desire to commence institutions de novo. 

His gigantic mind gave him a temper that spurned at all au- 
thority. This was his characteristic through life: it showed 
itself in every thought and every action, both public and private, 
from his earliest youth ; except that he did not appear to rebel 
against parental authority : for nothing is more beautiful than 
his mild and tender expostulation to his father. 

His great poems require such a stretch of mind in the reader 
as to be almost painful. The most amazing copiousness of learn- 
ing is sublimated into all his conceptions and descriptions. His 
learning never oppressed his imagination, and his imagination 
never obliterated or dimmed his learning ; but even these would 
not have done without the addition of a great heart and a pure 
and lofty mind. 

That mind was given up to study and meditation from his boy- 
hood till his death : he had no taste for the vulgar pleasures of 
life; he was all spiritual. But he loved fame enthusiastically, 
and was ready to engage in the great afiairs of public business ; 
and when he did engage, performed his part with industry, skill, 
and courage. Courage, indeed, mingled in a prominent degree 
among his many other mighty and splendid qualities. 

Who is equal to analyze a mind so rich, so powerful, so ex- 
quisite ? 

I do not think that tenderness was his characteristic ; and he 
was, above all other men, unyielding. His softer sensibilities 
were rather reflective than instantaneous : his sentiments came 
from his imagination, rather than his imagination from his 
sentiments. 

The vast fruits of his mind ahvays resulted from complex in- 



1 fi -^e venerate Milton as a man of genius, 
but still more as a man of magnanimity and 
Christian virtue; who regarded genius and 
poetry as sacred gifts imparted to him, not to 



amuse men or to build up a reputation, but 
that he might quicken and call forth what 
was great and divine in his fellow-creatures." 

— Channing. 



BRYDGES. 269 

gredients ; though they were so amalgamated that with him they 
became simple in their effects. It is impossible now to trace the 
processes of his intellect. We cannot tell what he would have 
been without study ; but we know that he must have been great 
under any circumstances, though his greatness might have been 
of a different kind. 

He made whatever he gathered from others his own ; he only 
used it as an ingredient for his own combinations. 

His earliest study seems to have been the holy writings : they 
first fed his fancy with the imagery of Eastern poetry; and 
nowhere could he have found so sublime a nutriment. But what 
is any nutriment to him who cannot taste, digest, and be 
nourished? It depends not upon the force and excellence of 
what is conveyed, but upon the power of the recipient ; it is, 
almost all, inborn genius, though it may be under the influence 
of some small modification from discipline. 

Superficial minds, affecting the tone of wisdom, hold out that 
the gifts of the Muse are incompatible with serious business. 
Milton, the greatest of poets, affords a crushing answer to this. 
In the flower of his manhood and through middle age he was a 
statist, an active man of executive affairs in a crisis of unexampled 
difiiculty and danger. His controversial writings, both in politics 
and divinity, are solid, vigorous, original, and practical ; and yet 
he could return at last to the highest flights of the Muse, un- 
damped and undimmed. 

The lesson of his life is one of the most instructive that bio- 
graphy affords: it shows what various and dissimilar powers 
may be united in the same person, and what a grandeur of moral 
principle may actuate the human heart ; but at the same time it 
shows how little all these combined talents and virtues can secure 
the due respect and regard of contemporaries. It is absurd to 
deny that Milton was neglected during his life, and that his un- 
worldlymindedness let the meanest of the people mount over his 
head. He lived poor, and for the most part in obscurity. Even 
high employments in the state seem to have obtained him no 
luxuries, and few friends or acquaintance : no brother poets 
flocked round him; none praised him, though in the habit of 
flattering each other. 

If intellect is the grand glory of man, Milton stands pre-emi- 
nent above all other human beings, — above Homer, Virgil, 
Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Spenser, and Shakspeare. To the highest 
grandeur of invention upon the sublimest subject he unites the 
greatest wisdom .and learning, and the most perfect art. Almost 
all other poets sink into twinkling stars before him. What has 
issued from the French school of poetry seems to be the produc- 
tion of an inferior order of beings : and in this I include even 
our Dryden and Pope ; for I cannot place these two famous men 

23* 



270 



BRYDGES. 



among the greatest poets : they may be among the first of a 
secondary class. 

It is easy to select fine passages from minor poetical authors ; 
but a great poet must be tried by his entirety, — by the uniform 
texture of his web. 

Milton has a language of his own, — I may say, invented by 
himself. It is somewhat hard, but it is all sinew : it is not ver- 
nacular, but has a Latinized cast, w^hich requires a little time to 
reconcile a reader to it. It is best fitted to convey his own mag- 
nificent ideas ; its very learnedness impresses us with respect ; it 
moves with a gigantic step ; it does not flow, like Shakspeare's 
style, nor dance, like Spenser's. Now and then there are trans- 
positions somewhat alien to the character of the English lan- 
guage, which is not well calculated for transposition ; but in 
Milton this is perhaps a merit, because his lines are pregnant 
with deep thought and sublime imagery, which require us to 
dwell upon them and contemplate them over and over. He 
ought never to be read rapidly : his is a style which no one 
ought to imitate till he is endowed with a soul like Milton's. 
His ingredients of learning are so worked into his original 
thoughts that they form a part of them ; they are never patches. 



Besides his numerous and admirable criticisms on English poets, Sir Egerton 
Brydges has himself written some very beautiful sonnets. We will give one as 
a specimen.i 

ECHO AND SILENCE. 

In eddying course when leaves began to fly, 

And Autumn in her lap the store to strew. 

As mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo, 
Through glens untrod, and woods that frown'd on high, 
Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy ! 

And, lo, she's gone! — In robe of dark -green hue 

'Twas Echo from her sister Silence flew, 
For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the sky ! 
In shade affrighted Silence melts away. 

Not so her sister. — Hark ! for onward still. 
With far-heard step, she takes her listening way. 

Bounding from rock to rock, and lull to hill. 
Ah, mark the merry maid in mockful play. 

With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest fill ! 



1 " The great labors of Sir Egerton Brydges 
in the cause of English literature will be duly 
appreciated by posterity. For some years past 
(1833) be ba^ resided at Geneva, where he still 



devotes himself to his favorite pursuits with 
an enthusiasm which neither age nor sickness 
can subdue." — Dyce. 



ALISON. 



271 



ARCHIBALD ALISON, 1756-1838. 

Archibald Alison was the son of Andrew Alison, of Edinburgh, and was 
matriculated at Baliol College, Oxford, in 1775. After completing his theo- 
logical course of study, he was settled successively in two or three different 
parishes, and finally became the senior minister of St. Paul's Chapel, in his 
native city. In 1790 he published his admirable Essays on the Nature and 
Principles of Taste, the work for which he is most distinguished.^ In 1814 he 
gave to the public two volumes of sermons, justly admired for the elegance 
and beauty of their language, and their gently persuasive inculcation of Chris- 
tian duty. He died at Edinburgh in the year 1838, at the advanced age of 
eighty-two.2 

ON THE PLEASURE OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE. 

In every period of life, the acquisition of knowledge is one of 
the most pleasing employments of the human mind. But in 
youth there are circumstances which make it productive of higher 
enjoyment. It is then that every thing has the charm of novelty; 
that curiosity and fancy are awake ; and that the heart swells 
with the anticipations of future eminence and utility. Even in 
those lower branches of instruction which we call mere accom- 
plishments, there is something always pleasing to the young in 
their acquisition. They seem to become every well-educated 
person ; they adorn, if they do not dignify, humanity ; and, what 
is far more, while they give an elegant employment to the hours 
of leisure and relaxation, they afford a means of contributing to 
the purity and innocence of domestic life. 

But in the acquisition of knowledge of the higher kind — in the 
hours when the young gradually begin the study of the laws of 
nature, and of the faculties of the human mind, or of the mag- 
nificent revelations of the gospel — there is a pleasure of a sublimer 
nature. The cloud which, in their infant years, seemed to cover 
nature from their view begins gradually to resolve. The world 
in which they are placed opens with all its wonders upon their 
eye ; their powers of attention and observation seem to expand 
with the scene before them ; and, while they see, for the first time,, 
the immensity of the universe of God, and mark the majestic 
simplicity of those laws by which its operations are conducted, 
they feel as if they were awakened to a higher species of being, 
and admitted into nearer intercourse with the Author of Nature. 



1 In this he maintains " that all beauty, or, 
at least, that all the beauty of material objects, 
depends on the associations that may have 
connected them with the ordinary afifections 
or emotions of our nature ; and in this, which 
is the fundamental part of his tlieory, we con- 
ceive him to be no less clearly right than he 
is convincing and judicious in the copious and 



beautiful illustrations by which he has sought 
to establish its truth." 

2 Read an article on Alison's Essays on Taste, 
in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xviii. 1 ; one 
on his Sermons, vol. xxiii. 424; and another 
upon his Sermons, in the Quarterly Review, 
vol. xiv. 429. 



272 ALISON. 

It is this period, accordingly, more than all others, that deter- 
mines our hopes or fears of the future fate of the young. To feel 
no joy in such pursuits, to listen carelessly to the voice which 
brings such magnificent instruction, to see the vail raised which 
conceals the counsels of the Deity, and to show no emotion at the 
discovery, are symptoms of a weak and torpid spirit, — of a mind 
unworthy of the advantages it possesses, and fitted only for the 
humility of sensual and ignoble pleasure. Of those, on the con- 
trary, who distinguish themselves by the love of knowledge, who 
follow with ardor the career that is open to them, we are apt to 
form the most honorable presages. It is the character which is 
natural to youth, and which, therefore, promises well of their 
maturity. We foresee for them, at least, a life of pure and vir- 
tuous enjoyment, and we are willing to anticipate no common 
share of future usefulness and splendor. 

In the second place, the pursuits of knowledge lead not only 
to happiness, but to honor. " Length of days is in her right 
hand, and in her left are riches and honor." It is honorable to 
excel even in the most trifling species of knowledge, in those 
which can amuse only the passing hour. It is more honorable to 
excel in those diflTerent branches of science which are connected 
with the liberal professions of life, and which tend so much to 
the dignity and well-being of humanity. It is the means of 
raising the most obscure to esteem and attention ; it opens to the 
just ambition of youth some of the most distinguished and re- 
spected situations in society ; and it places them there with the 
consoling reflection that it is to their own industry and labor, in 
the providence of God, that they are alone indebted for them. 
But to excel in the higher attainments of knowledge, to be dis- 
tinguished in those greater pursuits which have commanded the 
attention and exhausted the abilities of the wise in every former 
age, is, perhaps, of all the distinctions of human understanding, 
the most honorable and grateful. 

When we look back upon the great men who have gone before 
us in every path of glory, we feel our eye turn from the career 
of war and ambition, and involuntarily rest upon those who have 
displayed the great truths of religion, who have investigated the 
laws of social welfare, or extended the sphere of human know- 
ledge. These are honors, we feel, which have been gained without 
a crime, and which can be enjoyed without remorse. They are 
honors, also, which can never die, — which can shed lustre even 
upon the humblest head, — and to which the young of every suc- 
ceeding age will look up, as their brightest incentives to the pur- 
suit of virtuous fame. 



ALISON. ■ 273 

ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF AMUSE3IENTS. 

It were unjust and ungrateful to conceive that the amusements 
of life are altogether forbid by its beneficent Author. They serve, 
on the contrary, important purposes in the economy of human life, 
and are destined to produce important eflTects both upon our hap- 
piness and character. They are, in the first place, in the language 
of the Psalmist, "the wells of the desert;" the kind resting-places 
in which toil may relax, in which the weary spirit may recover 
its tone, and where the desponding mind may resume its strength 
and its hopes. 

It is not, therefore, the use of the innocent amusements of life 
which is dangerous, but the abuse of them ; it is not when they 
are occasionally, but when they are constantly, pursued ; when 
the love of amusement degenerates into a passion ; and when, 
from being an occasional indulgence, it becomes an habitual 
desire. What the consequences of this inordinate love of amuse- 
ment are I shall now endeavor very briefly to show you. 

1. It tends to degrade all the powers of the understanding. It 
is the eternal law of nature that truth and wisdom are the off- 
spring of labor, of vigor, and perseverance in every worthy object 
of jjursuit. The eminent stations of fame, accordingly, and the 
distinguished honors of knowledge, have, in every age, been the 
reward only of such early attainments, of that cherished elevation 
of mind which pursues only magnificent ends, and of that heroic 
fortitude which, whether in action or in speculation, pursues them 
by the means of undeviating exertion. 

For the production of such a character no discipline can be so 
unfit as that of the habitual love of amusement. It kindles not 
the eye of ambition, it bids the heart beat with no throb of 
generous admiration, it lets the soul be calm, w^hile all the rest 
of our fellows are passing us in the road of virtue or of science. 
Satisfied with humble and momentary enjoyment, it aspires to no 
honor, no praise, no pre-eminence, and, contented with the idle 
gratification of the present hour, forgets alike what man has 
done and what man was born to do. 

2. The inordinate love of pleasure is, in the second place, 
equally hostile to the moral character. If the feeble and passive 
disposition of mind which it produces be unfavorable to the exer- 
tions of the understanding, it is, in the same measure, as un- 
favorable to the best employments of the heart. The great 
duties of life, the duties for which every man and woman is born, 
demand, in all situations, the mind of labor and perseverance. 
From the first hour of existence to the last, — from the cradle of 
the infant, beside which the mother watches with unslumbering 
eye, to the grave of the aged, where the son pours his last tears 
upon the bier of his father, — in all that intermediate time, every 



274 LMTITIA ELIZABETH MACLEAN. 

day calls for exertion and activity, and the moral honors of our I 
being can only be won by the steadfast magnanimity of pious | 

3. In the last place, this unmanly disposition is equally fatal 
to happiness as to virtue. To the wise and virtuous, to those 
who use the pleasures of life only as a temporary relaxation, as 
a resting-place to animate them on the great journey on which 
they are travelling, the hours of amusement bring real pleasure; 
to them the well of joy is ever full, while to those who linger by 
its side, its waters are soon dried and exhausted. 

I speak not now of those bitter waters which must mingle 
themselves with the well of unhallowed pleasure, of the secret 
reproaches of accusing conscience, of the sad sense of shame and 
dishonor, and of that degraded spirit which must bend itself 
beneath the scorn of the world ; I speak only of the simple and 
natural effect of unwise indulgence, that it renders the mind 
callous to enjoyment, and that, even though the " fountain were 
full of water," the feverish lip is incapable of satiating its thirst. 
Alas ! here, too, we may see the examples of human folly. We 
may see around us everywhere the fatal effects of unrestrained 
pleasure; the young sickening in the midst of every pure and 
genuine enjoyment; the mature hastening, with hopeless step, to 
fill up the hours of a vitiated being; and, what is still more 
wretched, the hoary head wandering in the way of folly, and, 
with an unhallowed dotage, returning again to the trifles and the 
amusements of childhood. 

Such, then, my young friends, are the natural aiid experienced 
consequences of the inordinate love even of innocent amusement, 
and such the intellectual and moral degradation to which the 
paths of pleasure conduct. Let me entreat you to pause ere you 
begin your course, ere those habits are acquired which may never 
again be subdued, and ere ye permit the charms of pleasure to 
wind around your soul their fascinating powers. 



LjETITIA ELIZABETH MACLEAN, 1802-1838. 

LMTITIA Elizabeth Landon,^ one of the sweetest of the female poets of our 
age, was born in London, on the 14th of Augv;st, 1802. She was the eldest 
of three children, of whom one, a girl, died at the age of thirteen; the other, 
the Rev. Whittington Henry Landon, was the attached and almost inseparable 
companion of her childhood and youth. She gave early indications of her 
love of letters, reading with avidity every thing that came in her way, and 

1 Better known to the literary world by the signature L. E. L. 



LJSTITIA ELIZABETH MACLEAN. 



275 



writing stories, the invention of her youthful genius, which she would read to 
her brother. 

In 1821, when she was about nineteen, appeared her first publication, The 
Fate of Adelaide, a Swiss romantic tale, dedicated to Mrs. Siddons, — a story 
of love, war, and misery, — with some minor poems. From this period till 1824, 
a series of Poetical Sketches, to which was annexed the signature " L. E. L.," 
appeared in the Literary Gazette; and L. E. L. speedily became a great 
favorite with the public.^ She also contributed largely to many other periodi- 
cals, and to nearly all the annuals, of some of which she wrote all the j)oetry, 
as of Fisher's Drawing-Room Scrap-Book, the Flowers of Loveliness, and the 
Bijou Almanac. This almost ceaseless composition necessarily precluded the 
thought, study, and cultivation essential to the production of poetry of the 
highest order. "Hence, with all their fancy and feeling, her principal works 
— the Improvisatrice, the Troubadour, the Golden Violet, the Golden Bracelet, 
and the Vow of the Peacock — bear a strong family likeness to each other in 
their recurrence to the same sources of allusion and the same veins of 
imagery, — in the conventional rather than natural coloring of their de- 
scriptions, and in the excessive though not unmusical carelessness of their 
versification. In spite, however, of the constant strain upon her powers 
and the ceaseless distractions of a London life. Miss Landon accomplished 
much for her own mind in the progress of its career: she had reached a deeper 
earnestness of thought, had added largely to the stores of her knowledge, and 
done much towards the polishing and perfecting of her verse." 

Miss Landon was married on the 7th of June, 1838, to George Maclean, Esq., 
Governor of Cape Coast Castle, Africa, and, soon leaving England for her new 
abode, she arrived there on the 15th of August.^ Letters were received from 
her by her friends in England, telling them of her employments and her 
happiness j but these were soon followed by news of her death. Oh the morn- 
ing of the 16th of October of the same year, she was found dead upon the 
floor of her chamber.' 

Of Mrs. Maclean's genius there can be but one opinion. "She had great 
intellectual power, a highly sensitive and ardent imagination, an intense 
fervor of passionate emotion, and almost unequalled eloquence and fluency. 
Of mere art she displayed but little. Her style is irregular and careless, but 
there is genius in every line she has written." The following are some 
of her best pieces : — 



1 Losing her father about this time, she ap- 
plied the fruits of her literary lal>ors to the 
maintenance of her family, especially to the 
assistance of her brother, then at Oxford. 

2 Cape Coast Castle, Gulf of Guinea, is the 
capital of the British possessions on the Gold 
Coast. 

* Read the eighth chapter of Cruiclcshank's 
Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast of Africa, 
which is devoted to an account of Mr. and Mrs. 
Maclean, and especially to the death of the 
latter. From Mr. C.'s circumstantial narra- 
tive, it is highly probable that she died in a 



fit, similar to one which she had had in Eng- 
land and which then proved nearly fatal. 
The story that was circulated that she com- 
mitted suicide was undoubtedly a slander, as 
she had no reason for committing such a deed, 
being happy in her domestic relations, and 
having every reason to look forward to still 
higher fame as an anthor. Read the whole 
case of her death very fully stated in that 
interesting book, Homes and Haunts of the 
British Poets, by William Howitt; also a paper 
upon the subject in the Atlantic Mcmthlu for 
March, 1865. 



276 L^TITIA ELIZABETH MACLEAN. 



SUCCESS ALONE SEEN. 

Few know of life's beginnings : — men behold 
The goal achieved ; — the warrior, when his sword 
Flashes red triumph in the noonday sun ; 
The poet, when his lyre hangs on the palm ; 
The statesman, when the crowd proclaim his voice, 
And mould ophiion on his gifted tongue : 
They count not life's first steps, and never think 
Upon the many miserable hours 
When hope deferr'd was sickness to the lieart. 
They reckon not the battle and the march, 
The long privations of a wasted youth ; 
They never see the banner till unfurl' d. 
What are to them the solitary nights 
Pass'd pale and anxious by the sickly lamp, 
Till the young poet wins the world at last 
To listen to the music long his own? 
The crowd attend the statesman's fiery mind 
That makes their destiny; but they do not trace 
Its struggle, or its long expectancy. 
Hard are life's early steps ; and, but that youth 
Is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope. 
Men would behold its threshold, and despair. 



THE WIDOWS MITE. 

It is the fruit of waking hours 

When others are asleep ; 
When moaning round tlie low-thatch'd roof 

The winds of winter creep. 

It is the fruit of summer days 

Pass'd in a gloomy room. 
When others are abroad to taste 

The pleasant morning bloom. 

'Tis given from a scanty store, 

And miss'd while it is given ; 
'Tis given, — for the claims of earth 

Are less than those of heaven. 

Few, save the poor, feel for the poor ; 

The rich know not how hard 
It is to be of needful food 

And needful rest debarr'd. 

Their paths are paths of plenteousness : 

They sleep on silk and down. 
And never think how heavily 

The weary head lies down. . 

They know not of the scanty meal, 

With small pale faces round : 
No fire upon the cold, damp hearth. 

When snow is on the ground. 



LuETITIA ELIZABETH MACLEAN. 



277 



Tliey never by their window sit, 

And see the gay pass by, 
Yet take their weary work again, 

Though with a mournful eye. 

The rich, they give, — they miss it not, — 

A blessing cannot be 
Like that which rests, thou widow'd one. 

Upon thy gift and thee ! 



TIME ARRESTING THE CAREER OF PLEASURE. 



Stay thee on thy wild career, 
Other sounds than mirth's are near ; 
Spread not those white arms in air ; 
Fling those roses from thy hair ; 
Stop awhile those glancing feet ; 
Still thy golden cymbals' beat ; 
Ring not thus thy joyous laugh ; 
Cease that purple cup to quaS': 
Hear my voice of warning, hear, — 
Stay thee on thy wild career ! 

Youth's sweet bloom is round thee 

now; 
Eoses laugh upon thy brow ; 
Radiant are thy starry eyes ; 
Spring is in the crimson dyes 
O'er which thy dimpled smile is 

wreathing ; 
Incense on thy lip is breathing ; 
Light and Love are round thy soul, — 
But thunder-peals o'er June skies 

roll: 



Even now the storm is near, — 
Then stay thee on thy mad career I 

Raise thine eyes to yonder sky, 
There is writ thy destiny ! 
Clouds have vail'd the new moon- 
light; 
Stars have fallen from their height ; 
These are emblems of the fate 
That waits thee, — dark and desolate I 
All morn's lights are now thine own. 
Soon their glories will be gone ; 
What remains when they depart ? 
Faded hope and wither'd heart : 
Like a flower with no perfume 
To keep a memory of its bloom ! 

Look upon that hour-mark' d round. 
Listen to that fateful sound ; 
There my silent hand is stealing, 
My more silent course revealing ; 
Wild, devoted Pleasure, hear, — 
Stay thee on thy mad career I 



THE WRONGS OF LOVE. 

Alas ! how bitter are the wrongs of love ! 
Life has no other sorrow so acute : 
For love is made of every fine emotion. 
Of generous impulses, and noble thoughts ; 
It looketh to the stars, and dreams of heaven ; 
It nestles mid the flowers, and sweetens earth. 
Love is aspiring, yet is humble, too : 
It doth exalt another o'er itself. 
With sweet heart-homage, which delights to raise 
That which it worships ; yet is fain to win 
The idol to its lone and lowly home 
Of deep affection. 'Tis an utter wreck 
When such hopes perish. From that moment, life 
Has in its depths a well of bitterness, 
For which there is no healing. 

24 



278 BAYLY. 



LOVE'S LAST WORDS. 

J.ight be around thee, hope be thy guide ; 
ly be thy bark, and smooth be the tide ; 
»ft be the wind that beareth thee on, 
veet be thy welcome, thy wanderings done. 

right be the hearth, may the eyes you love best 
rcet the long-absent again to his rest ; 
.e thy life like glad music, which floateth away 
.s the gale lingering over the rose-tree in May. 

5ut yet while thy moments in melody roll, 

Je one dark remembrance left on thy soul, 

i3e the song of the evening thrice sad on thine ear, — 

Then think how your twilights were past away here. 

And yet let the shadow of sorrowing be 
Light as the dream of the morning to thee ! 
One fond, faint recollection, one last sigh of thine 
May be granted to love so devoted as mine ! 



THE POET. 

Oh, say not that truth does not dwell with the lyre, 
That the minstrel will feign what he never has felt ; 

Oh, say not his love is a fugitive fire, 

Thrown o'er the snow mountains, will sparkle, not melt. 

It is not the Alpine hills rich with the ray 

Of sunset can image the soul of the bard ; 
The light of the evening around them may play, 

But the frost-work beneath is, though bright, cold and hard. 

'Tis the burning volcano, that ceaselessly glows, 

Where the minstrel may find his own semblance portray'd ; 

The red fires that gleam on the summits are those 
That first on his own inmost spirit have prey'd. 

Ah, deeply the minstrel has felt all he sings. 

Every passion he paints his own bosom has known ; 

No note of wild music is swept from the strings, 
But first his own feelings have echoed the tone. 

Then say not his love is a fugitive fire. 

That the heart can be ice while the lip is of flame ; 

Oh, say not that truth does not dwell with the lyre ; 
For the pulse of the heart and the harp are the same. 



THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY, 1197-1889. 

Thomas Haynes Bayly was born in the city of Bath, in the year 1797. On 
the completion of his education, he began the world under the most favorable 
auspices, and mingled with the best society of the day. At the age of twenty- 



BAYLY. 279 

eight, having married an excellent and accomplished woman, who hrought 
him a considerable fortune, he retired to a country-seat in Sussex, where he 
continued in the enjoyment' of literary leisure and domestic happiness till 
1831, when he experienced a change in his pecuniary afiairs. The fortune 
of his wife had been mostly expended, and his father suddenly became a 
bankrupt and left the country. Under this pressure of misfortunes, he ad- 
dressed the following beautiful 

VERSES TO HIS WIFE. 

Oh ! hadst thou never shared my fate, 

More dark that fate would prove: 
My heart were truly desolate 

Without thy soothing love. 

J3ut thou hast suffer' d for my sake, 

AVhilst this relief I found, 
Like fearless lips that strive to take 

The poison from a wound. 

My fond affection thou hast seen, 

Then judge of my regret 
To think more happy thou hadst been 

If we had never met! 

And has that thought been shared by thee? 

Ah, no ! that,smiling cheek 
Proves more michanging love for me 

Than labor'd words could speak. 

But there are true hearts Avhich the sight 

Of sorrow summons forth; 
Though known in days of past delight, 

We knew not half their worth. 

How unlike some who have profess'd 

So much in friendship's name, 
Yet calmly pause to think how best 

They may evade her claim. 

But, ah ! from them to thee I turn, — 

They'd make me loathe mankind ; 
Far better lessons I may learn 

From thy more holy mind. 

The love that gives a charm to home, 

I feel they cannot take : 
We'll pray for happier years to come. 

For one another's sake. 

He had hitherto written for his amusement, but he now had to write for hia 
bread; and soon he became one of the most industrious as well as the most 
successful of English song-writers. But, though he received large sums for 
his most popular songs and ballads, he was, from his want of habits of 
economy, always embarrassed and oppressed with debt. The excitement 
occasioned by his situation at length induced disease; and he died at Chelten- 



280 BAYLY. 

ham, after a severe and protracted illness, on the 22d of April, 1839, in his 
forty-second year, leaving a wife and two children to mourn his premature 
loss. 

Mr. Bayly was the author of Rough Sketches of Bath, Parliamentary Letters 
and other Poems, and many pieces for the stage. But he is now mostly 
known for his exquisite songs, which for sweetness and elegance are second 
only — if they be second — to those of Burns and Moore; showing the playful 
fancy, the practised ear, and the refined taste of the avithor. They are simple, 
natural, graceful, and tender, — descriptive of the feelings of all, in a language 
which all can apj^reciate and understand. It is doubtful if any other songs in 
the English language ever attained the popularity of Oh, no, we never mention 
her ! I'd be a Butterfly, and The Soldier's Tear. Other of his songs, as. Why don't 
the Men propose f and My Married Daughter could you see, show a different kind 
of power, — that the author possessed that knowledge of human nature, and 
those powers of keen and delicate satire, which can lay b^'e the secret work- 
ings of the heart of a vain daughter, or of a silly, ambitious mother, for the 
amusement of the world. 

/ NEVER WAS A FAVORITE. 

I never was a favorite, — 

My mother never smiled 
On me, with half the tenderness 

That bless'd her fairer child : 
I've seen her kiss my sister's cheek, 

While fondled on her knee; 
I've turn'd away, to hide my tears, — 

There was no kiss for me ! 

And yet I strove to please with all 

My little store of sense; 
I strove to please, — and infancy 

Can rarely give offence : 
But Avhen my artless efforts met 

A cold, ungentle clieck, 
I did not dare to throw myself 

In tears upon her neck ! 

How blessed are the beautiful ! 

Love watches o'er their birth; 
O beauty ! in my nursery 

I learn'd to know thy worth: 
For even there I often felt 

Forsaken and forlorn ; 
And wish'd — for others wish'd it too — 

I never had been born ! 

I'm sure I Avas afTectionate ; 

But in my sister's face 
There was a look of love, that claim'd 

A smile or an embrace: 
But when I raised my lip to meet 

The pressure children prize, 
None knew the feelings of my heart, — 

They spoke not in my eyes. 



BAYLY. 281 



> 



i 



But, oh! that heart too keenly felt 

The anguish of neglect ! 
I saw my sister's lovely form 

With gems and roses deck'd : 
I did not covet them ; but oft, 

When wantonly reproved, 
I envied her the privilege 

Of being so beloved. 

But soon a time of triumph came, 

A time of sorrow too ; 
For sickness o'er my sister's form 

Her venom' d mantle threw; 
The features, once so beautiful, 

Now wore the hue of death ; 
And former friends shrank fearfully 

From her infectious breath. 

'Twas then, unwearied, day and night, 

I watch' d beside her bed ; 
And fearlessly upon my breast 

I pillow'd her poor head. 
She lived ! — and loved me for my care,- 

My grief was at an end ; 
I was a lonely being once, 

But now I have a friend. 



MY MARRIED DAUGHTER COULD YOU SEE. 

My married daughter could you see, 

I'm sure you would be struck, — 
My daughters all are charming girls, 

Few mothers have such luck. 
My married one — my eldest child — • 

All hearts by magic wins ; 
And my second so resembles her. 

Most people think them twins ! 

My married daughter spoils her spouse, — 

She's quite a pattern wife ; 
And he adores her, — well he may, — 

Few men lead such a life ! 
She ne'er had married mortal man 

Till he had won her heart ; 
And my second darling's just the same, — 

They're seldom known apart. 

Her husband oft has press'd my hand. 

While tears were in his eyes, 
And said, '' You brought my Susan up,— 

With you the credit lies." 
To make her a domestic wife, 

I own, was all my aim ; 
And my second is domestic too, — 

My system was the same. 
24* 



282 BAYLY. 

Now, do you know, I've often thought 

The eldest of the two 
{Sh^s married, so I may speak out) 

AVould just have suited you / 
You never saw her? — how shall I 

My eldest girl portray ? 
Oh ! my second is her counterpart, 

And her you'll meet to-day. 



WHY DON'T THE HEN PROPOSE? 

Why don't the men propose, mamma? 

Why doiiH the men propose? 
Each seems just coming to the point, 

And then away he goes ! 
It is no fault of yours, mamma, 

That everybody knows ; 
You fete the finest men in town. 

Yet, oh ! they won't propose ! 

I'm sure I've done my best, mamma, 

To make a proper match ; 
For coronets and eldest sons 

I'm ever on the watch ; 
I've hopes when some distingue beau 

A glance upon me throws ; 
But though he'll dance, and smile, and flirt, 

Alas! he won't propose! 

I've tried to win by languishing 

And dressing like a blue ; 
I've bought big books, and talk'd of thera 

As if I'd read them through I 
With hair cropp'd like a man, I've felt 

The heads of all the beaux ; 
But Spurzheim could not touch their heartSj 

And, oh I they won't propose I 

I threw aside the books, and thought 

That ignorance was bliss ; 
I felt convinced that men preferr'd 

A simple sort of Miss ; 
And so I lisp'd out naught beyond 

Plain " yeses" or plain " noes," 
And wore a sweet unmeaning smile ; 

Yet, oh ! they won't propose ! 

Last night, at Lady Eamble's rout, 

I heard Sir Harry Gale 
Exclaim, " Now I propose again !" 

I started, turning pale ; 
I really thought my time was come, 

I blush'd like any rose ; 
But, oh ! I found 'twas only at 

Ecarte he'd propose / 



PRAED. 



283 



And what is to be done, mamma ? 

Oh ! what is to be done ? 
I really have no time to lose, 

For I am thirty-one : 
At balls I am too often left 

Where spinsters sit in rows ; 
Why won't the men propose, mamma ? 

Why wonH the men propose? 



WINTER OP MAGKWORTH PRAED, 1802-1839. 

WiNTHROP Mackworth Praed, son of Mr. Sergeant Praed, was born in Lon- 
don, 1802, and was early sent to Eton School, where he gained high reputation 
for scholarship and poetic talent. In 1820 appeared a monthly magazine, 
called The Etonian, to which Praed was the principal contributor. From Eton 
he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself by his 
brilliant talents and scholarship, obtaining the highest prizes both for Greek 
odes and English poems. He was one of the chief speakers of the famous 
Cambridge Debating Society called The Union, his most formidable rival 
being Thomas Babington Macaulay, whom he might have equalled as an 
orator and historian had not his brilliant career been so early terminated. 
He was called to the bar in 1829, and was, from 1830 to 1835, elected twice to 
Parliamei^, where, in his speeches, he showed great readiness of debating 
power, as well as keenness of wit. For a short time he was Secretary to the 
Board of Control, and, had his life been spared, it is probable that some of the 
most important offices of state would have been within his reach ; but he died, 
of consumption, on the 15th of July, 1839, in his thirty-seventh year. 

Most of Praed's poetical pieces were contributed to periodicals.^ They are 
for the most part light, fashionable sketches, but are executed with great truth 
and sprightliness. His very serious pieces, though few, are full of profound 
thought presented in most graceful and beautiful diction. Still, it is true 
that fun, and frolic, and gay, lively satire constituted his special genius: so 
that with much truth it has been said that his sober poems seem more me- 
chanical, while his nonsense was natural. But in much of his nonsense there 
is hidden sense of a most instructive character. 

31 Y MOTHER'S GEAVE.^ 

My mother's grave, my mother's grave ! 

Oh ! dreamless is her slumber there, 
And drowsily the banners wave 

O'er her that was so chaste and fair; 



1 " The Americans, with their iisual quick- 
ness, long ago perceived his merits, and pub- 
lished his poetical works, but have included in 
the edition many poems which Praed never 
wrote." Since the above was written by the 
autlior of Chambers's Book of Days, a correct 
and elegant edition of his works, edited by 
Rev. Derwent Coleridge, has been published by 
W. J. Widdloton, New York, 1865, in 2 vols. 

2 From The Troubadour. "When but six 



years old, Praed wrote some remarkable lines 
on his recovery from a dangerous illness. In 
these he speaks thus of his mother : — 

" kindest, best of mothers ! 

May all your days be blest with many comforts, 
The last of them far distant!" 

And though she died the next year, her memory 
was ever precious to him. 



284 PBAED. 



Yea! love is dead, and memory faded ! 
But when the dew is on the brake, 

And silence sleeps on earth and sea, 
And mourners weep, and ghosts awake, 
Oh ! then she coniQlh back to me, 
In her cold beauty darkly shaded! 

I cannot guess her face or form ; 

But what to me is form or face ? 
I do not ask the weary worm 

To give me back each buried grace 
Of glistening eyes, or trailing tresses ! 

I only feel that she is here. 

And that we meet, and that we part ; 

And that I drink within mine ear, 
And that I clasp around my heart, 
Her sweet still voice and soft caresses ! 

Not in the waking thought by day, 

Not in the sightless dream by night, 
Do the mild tones and glances play, 

Of her who was my cradle's light ! 
But in some twilight of calm weather. 

She glides, by fancy dimly wrought, 
A glittering cloud, a darkling beam, 

With all the quiet of a thought. 
And all the passion of a dream, 
Link'd in a golden spell together ! 

A WINDLASS— A CHARADE. 

He who can make my First to roll, 
When not a breath is blowing, 

May very slightly turn my Whole 
To set a mountain going : 

He who can curb my Second's will 
When she's inclined for roving, 

May turn my Whole more slightly still 
To cure the moon of moving ! 



• A FOOTPAD— A CHARADE. 

The Palmer comes from the Holy Land ; 
Scarce on my First can the Palmer stand: 
The Prior will take the air to-day ; 
On my Second the Prior trots away : 
'Tis pleasanter, under a summer sun, . 
With robes to ride than with rags to run. 

My Whole leap'd out of the road -side ditch, 

With "Stand" to the poor man, and "Stand" to the rich: 

From the Prior he strips his mantle fair ; 

From the Palmer he wins but pity and prayer : 

'Tis safer, when crime is prowling wide. 

With rags to run than with robes to ride. 



PRAED. 



285 



A GREAT POET— A CHARADE. 

Come from my First, ay, come ! 

The battle dawn is nigh ; 
And the screaming trump and the thund'ring drum 

Are calling thee to die ! 
Fight as thy fathers fought, 

Fall as thy fathers fell ! 
Thy task is taught, thy shroud is wrought ; 

So, forward ! and farewell ! 

Toll ye my Second ! toll ! 

Fling high the flambeau's light ; 
And sing the hymn for a parted soul 

Beneath the silent night ! 
The helm upon his head, 

The cross upon his breast, 
Let the prayer be said, and the tear be shed : 

So take him to his rest. 

Call ye my Whole, go, call ! 

The lord of lute and lay ; 
And let him gieet the sable pall 

With a noble song to-day ; 
Go, call him by his name ; 

No fitter hand may crave 
To light the flame of a soldier's fame 

On the turf of a soldier's grave.^ 



TO HELEN? 

What prayer, dear Helen, shalFI pray. 

On this my brightest holiday, 

To the great Giver of all good. 

By whom our thoughts are understood, — 

Lowly or lofty, wild or weak,— 

Long ere the tardy tongue can speak ? 

For yon, my treasure, let me pray 
That, as swift Time shall steal away 
Year after year, you ne'er may deem 
The radiance of this morning's beam 
Less happy — holy — than you know 
It dawn'd for us two years ago. 

And for our infants let me pray — 
Our little precious babes — that they, 
Whate'er their lot in future years. 
Sorrow or gladness, smiles or tears. 
May own whatever is, is just, 
And learn their mother's hope and trust. 



1 For the solution examine the Fifth Decade. 

2 This was his wife, Helen, daughter of George 
Bogle, Esq., to whom he was united in the 
summer of 1835. During the four years of 
their companionship, she devoted to her hus- 



band, whose high qualities, intellectual and 
moral, she was in every way qualified to appre- 
ciate, all the resources of the most assiduous 
affection. She died 1864. 



286 PRAED. 

And for my own heart let me pray 
That God may mould me day by day, 
By grace descending from above, 
More worthy of the joy and love 
Which His beneficence divine 
On this, my best of days, made mine. 

FUUIUS.^ 

Go to the once loved bowers ; 
Wreathe blushing roses for the lady's hair : 

Winter has been upon the leaves and flowers, — 
They were ! 

Look for the domes of kings ; 
Lo, the owl's fortress, or the tiger's lair ! 

Oblivion sits beside them ; mockery sings, 
They were ! 

Waken the minstrel's lute ; 
Bid the smooth pleader charm the listening air : 

The chords are broken, and the lips are mute ; — 
They were ! 

Visit the great and brave ; 
Worship the witcheries of the bright and fair. 
Is not thy foot upon a new-made grave ? — 
They were ! 

Speak to thine own heart ; prove 
The secrets of thy nature. What is there ? 

Wild hopes, warm fancies, fervent faith, fond love,- 
Tliey were ! 

We too, we too must fall ; 
A few brief years to labor and to bear ; 

Then comes the sexton, and the old trite tale, 
''We were!" 



THE SABBATH. 

For whom was the Sabbath made ? — 

It brings repose and rest ; 
It hushes study's aching head. 

Ambition's anxious breast : 
The slave that digs the mine, 

The serf that ploughs the soil, 
For them it was ordain'd to shine ; — 

It is for all that toil. 

For whom was the Sabbath made ? — 
It opens the Book of Peace, 

Which tells of flowers that never fade. 
Of songs that never cease ; 



1 " We were.'' 



JAMES SMITH. 



287 



If the hopes you nursed decline, 
If the friends you cherish'd die, 

For you it was ordain' d to shine ; — 
It is for all that sigh. 

For whom was the Sabbath made ? — 

It calls the wretch to prayer, 
Whose soul the noonday thoughts upbraid, 

And the midnight visions scare : 
It calls thee to the shrine ; 

Fear'st thou to enter in ? 
For thee it was ordain' d to shine ; — 

It is for all that sin. 



JA31ES SMITH, 1775-18S9. 

The two brothers, James and Horace Smith, as the joint authors of the Re- 
jected Addresses, are almost as closely associated together in modern, as Beau- 
mont and Fletcher are in early English, literature.^ They were the sons of 
Robert Smith, an eminent legal practitioner of London. James was born on 
the 10th of February, 1775. He was educated at the school at Chigwell, in 
Essex, where his talents excited the admiration of his master. After com- 
pleting his education, he was articled to his father, was taken into partner- 
ship in due time, and eventually succeeded to the business; but never did his 
professional engagements alienate him altogether from his literary pursuits. 

His natural tendency to banter and cajolery, his keen sense of the ridiculous, 
his strong passion for the drama, and his love of London society and manners, 
— all these contributed to make him a town humorist, and his society courted 
by the circles of wit and fashion. His first pieces were written for the Picnic 
newspaper, which was made up of the contributions of a large number of 
writers, but which lived only about two years. From 1807 to 1810 he was a 
constant contributor to the Monthly Mirror. In 1812 appeared the celebi'ated 
Rejected Addresses,^ which at once established his fame as a writer of playful 



1 The fame of these brothers was confined 
to a limited circle until the publication of the 
Rejected Addresses. James used to dwell with 
much pleasure on the criticism of a Leicester- 
shire clergyman: — "I do not see why they 
(Tfie Addresses) should have been rejected; I 
think some of them very good." This, he 
would add, is almost as good as the avowal of 
the Irish bishop, who said that there were 
Bome things in Gullivers Travels which he 
could not believe. 

2 The occasion of the Rejected Addresses, 
called " one of the happiest hits in literature," 
was as follows : — In 1S12 the directors of the 
Drury Lane Theatre offered a premium of 
twenty pounds for the best poetical addi-ess, 
to be spoken on the opening of the new edi- 
fice. A casual hint from Mr. Ward, secretary 
to the theatre, suggested to the witty brothers, 
James and Horace Smith, the composition of 
a senes of humorous addresses in imitation of 



the style of the principal authors of the day, 
and professing to be composed by them. They 
were but six weeks in writing them, and the 
work was ready by the opening of the theatre. 
Its success was almost unprecedented, for in 
ten years it reached the eighteenth edition. 
The articles written by James Smith are : — 
No. 2. The Baby's Debut, by W. W. (Words- 
worth.) No. 5. Hampshire Farmer's Address, 
by W. C. (Cobbett.) No. 7. The Rebuilding, by 
W. S. (Southey.) No. 13. Playhouse Musings, 
by S. T. C. (Coleridge.) No. 14. Drury Lane 
Hustings, by a Picnic Poet (a quiz on what 
are called humorous songs). No. 16. Theatrical 
Alarm-Bell, by the editor of the M. P. (Morn- 
ing Post.) No. 17. The Theatre, by the Rev. 
G. C. (Crabbe.) Nos. 18, 19, and 20. Macbeth, 
George Barnwell, and the Stranger : travesties. 
He also supplied the first stanza to No. 4. Cui 
Bono, by Lord B. (Byron.) 



288 JAMUS SMITH. 

satire and humorous parody quite unequalled. So satisfied was he with the 
popularity thus acquired that he never afterward wrote any thing of length, — • 
confining himself to short, anonymous pieces in the New Monthly/ Magazine 
and other periodicals. He died on the 24th of December, 1839. His brother 
Horace collected his works and published them in two volumes, prefixing a 
biographical memoir. 

THE BABY'S BJEBUT. 



[Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of age, who is drawn upon the Btage 
in a child's chaise by Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.] 

My brother Jack was nine in May, 
And I was eight on 'New Year's Day ; 

So in Kate Wilson's shop ~ 
Papa (he's my papa and Jack's) 
Bought me, last week, a doll of wax, 

And brother Jack a top. 

Jack's in the pouts, and this it is, 

He thinks mine came to more than his, 

So to my drawer he goes, 
Takes out the doll, and oh, my stars ! 
He pokes her head between the bars, 

And melts off half her nose ! 

Quite cross, a bit of string I beg, 
And tie it to his peg-top's peg. 

And bang, with might and main. 
Its head against the parlor-door : 
Oflf flies the head, and hits the floor, 

And breaks a window-pane. 

This made him cry with rage and spite; 
Well, let him cry, it serves him right. 

A pretty thing, forsooth 1 
If he's to melt, all scalding hot, 
Half my doll's nose, and 1 am not 

To draw his peg-top's tooth I 

Aunt Hannah heard the window break, 
And cried, ** O naughty Nancy Lake, 

Thus to distress your aunt: 
No Drury Lane for you to-day !" 
And while papa said, " Pooh, she may !" 

Mamma said, " No, she shan't I" 

Well, after many a sad reproach. 
They got into a hackney-coach. 

And trotted down the street. 
I saw them go : one horse was blind ; 
The tails of both hung down behind ; 

Their shoes were on their feet. 

The chaise in which poor brother Bill 
Used to be drawn to Pentonville, 
Stood in the lumber-room : 



JAMES SMITH. 



289 



I wiped the dust from off the top, 
While Molly raopp'd it with a mop, 
And brush' d it with a broom. 

My uncle's porter, Samuel Hughes, 
Came in at six to black the shoes, 

(I always talk to Sam) : 
So what does he, but takes and drags 
Me in the chaise along the flags. 

And leaves me where I am. 

My father's walls are made of brick. 
But not so tall, and not so thick 

As these ; and — goodness me ! — 
My father's beams are made of wood, 
But never, never half so good 

As these that now I see. 

What a large floor ! 'tis like a town ! 
The carpet, when they lay it down. 

Won't hide it, I'll be bound : 
And there's a row of lamps ; my eye ! 
How they do blaze ! I wonder why 

They keep them on the ground. 

At first I caught hold of the wing, 
And kept away ; but Mr. Thing- 

Umbob, the prompter man, 
Gave with his hand my chaise a shove, 
And said, '' Go on, my pretty love ; 

Speak to 'em, little Nan. 

You've only got to curtsey, whisp- 
er, hold your chin up, laugh and lisp. 

And then you're sure to take : 
I've known the day when brats not quite 
Thirteen got fifty pounds a-night. 

Then why not Nancy Lake ?" 

But while I'm speaking, where's papa? 

And where's my aunt? and where's mamma? 

Where's Jack ? Oh, there they sit ! 
They smile, they nod ; I'll go my ways, 
And order round poor Billy's chaise, 

To join them in the pit. 

And now, good gentlefolks, I go 
To join mamma, and see the show ; 

So, bidding you adieu, 
I curtsey, like a pretty miss. 
And if you'll blow to me a kiss, 

I'll blow a kiss to you.^ 



[Blows kiss, and exit 



1 This is, of course, in iraitatiou of Words- 
worth's earlier writings; for in their preface 
the authors say, '■ To avoid politics and per- 
sonality, to imitate the turn of mind as well 
as the phraseology of our originals, and, at all 
events, to raise a harmless laugh, were our 
main objects ; in the attainment of which 



imited aims we were sometimes hurried Into 
extravagance. In no instance were we thus 
betrayed into greater injustice than in the 
case of Mr. Wordsworth, — the touching senti- 
ment, profound wisdom, and copious harmony 
of whose loftier writings we left unnoticed." 
" The author does not, in this instance, at- 



25 



290 



JAMES SMITH. 



THE THEATRE. {BY G. C.) 

'Tis sweet to view, from lialf-past five to six, 
Our long wax candles, with short cotton wicks, 
Touch' d by the lamplighter's Promethean art. 
Start into light, and make the lighter start : 
To see red Phoebus through the gallery-pane 
Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane, 
While gradual parties fill our widen' d pit. 
And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit. 
What various swains our motley walls contain ! 
Fashion from Moorfields, honor from Chick Lane ; 
Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort. 
Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court ; 
From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain, 
Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane ; 
The lottery cormorant, the auction shark. 
The full-price master, and the half-price clerk ; 
Boys who long linger at the gallery-door, 
With pence twice five, they want but twopence more, 
Till some Samaritan the twopence spares, 
And sends them jumping up the gallery-stairs. 
* * * -Sf- ^- * 

Silence, ye gods ! to keep your tongues in awe. 
The muse shall tell an accident she saw. 

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat ; 
But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat; 
Down from the gallery the beaver flew. 
And spurn' d the one, to settle in the two. 
How shall he act? Pay at the gallery-door 
Two shillings for what cost when new but four? 
Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait, 
And gain his hat again at half-past eight? 
Now, while his fears anticipate a thief, 
John Mullins whispers, " Take my handkerchief" 
" Thank you," cries Pat ; " but one won't make a line ;" 
" Take mine," cried Wilson ; and cried Stokes, " Take mine," 
A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties, 
Where Spitalfields with real India vies ; 
Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted clue, 
Starr'd, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue, 
Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new. 
George Green below, with palpitating hand, 
Loops the last 'kerchief to the beaver's band ; 
Upsoars the prize ; the youth, with joy unfeign'd, 
Regain'd the felt, and felt what he regain'd. 
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat 
Made a low bow, and touch' d the ransom' d hat.^ 



tempt to copy any of the higher attributes of 
Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, but has succeeded 
perfectly in the imitation of his mawkish 
affectations of childish simplicity and nui'sery 
stammering. We hope it will make him 
ashamed of his AUcd Fell, and the greater 
part of his last volumes, of which it is by no 
means a parody, but a very fair, and, indeed, 



we think, a very flattering imiiaiXion."— Edin- 
burgh Review. 

1 u I rpjjg Theatre,' by the Rev. George Crabbe, 
we rather think is the best piece in the collec- 
tion. It is an exquisite and most masterly 
imitation, not only of the peculiar style, but 
of the taste, temper, and manner of descrip- 
tion of that most original author, except in 



JAMES SMITH. 291 

THE UPAS IN 31ARYB0XE LANE. 

A tree grew in Java, whose pestilent rind 
A venom distiil'd of the deadliest kind ; 
The Dutch sent tlieir felons its juices to draw, 
And who return'd safe pleaded pardon by law. 

Face-miiffled, the culprits crept into the vale, 
Advancing from windward to 'scape the death-gale ; 
How few the reward of their victory earn'd ! 
For ninety-nine perish'd for one Avho return'd. 

Britannia this Upas-tree bought of Mynheer, 
Removed it through Holland, and planted it here; 
'Tis now a stock-plant of the genus wolf's-bane, 
And one of them blossoms in Marybone Lane. 

The house that surrounds it stands first in the row. 
Two doors at right angles swing open below ; 
And the children of misery daily steal in. 
And the poison they draw they denominate Gin. 

There enter the prude, and the reprobate boy, 
The mother of grief, and the daughter of joy. 
The serving-maid slim, and the serving-man stout, 
They quickly steal in, and they slowly reel out. 

Surcharged with the venom, some walk forth erect. 
Apparently baffling its deadly effect ; . 
But, sooner or later, the reckoning arrives, 
And ninety-nine perish for one who survives. 

They cautious advance with slouch'd boimet and hat, 
They enter at this door, they go out at that ; 
Some bear off their burden with riotous glee, 
But most sink in sleep at the foot of the tree. 

Tax, Chancellor Van, the Batavian to thwart, 
This compound of crime at a sovereign a quart ; 
Let gin fetch per bottle the price of champagne, 
And hew down the Upas in Marybone Lane. 

Of James Smith's minor effusions none are more witty than some epigrams 
in his "Martial in London," in imitation of the Latin bard. The following 
are a few specimens : — 

BLUE INK. 

You ask me, Edward, what I think 
Of this new fashionable ink ? 

I'll answer briefly, Ned, 
Methinks it will be always blue ; 
At all events, when used by you, 

It never will be red. 



the excessive profusion of puns and verbal 1 seems to us to be a singularly faithful copy 
jingles. It does not aim, of course, at any of his passages of mere description." — Edin- 
Bhadow of his pathos or moral sublimity, but | burgh Review. 



292 SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



MASCULINE AND FEMININE. 



In England rivers all are males, — 
For instance, Father Thames; 

Whoever in Columbia sails 

Finds them ma'amselles or dames. 



Yes, there the softer sex presides, 

Aquatic, I assure ye, 
And Mrs. Sippy rolls her tides 

Eesponsive to Miss Souri. 



THE SHOWER-BATH. 

Quoth Dermot (a lodger at Mrs. O'Flynn's), 

" How queerly my shower-bath feels ! 
It shocks like a posse of needles and pins, 

Or a shoal of electrical eels." 

Quoth Murphy, " Then mend it, and I'll tell you how : 
It's all your own fault, my good fellow : 

I used to be bother'd as you are, but now 
I'm wiser, — I take my umbrella." 

WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. 

As late the Trades' Unions, by way of a show, 
O'er Westminster Bridge strutted five in a row, 
"I feel for the bridge," whisper'd Dick, with a shiver; 
"Thus tried by the mob, it may sink in the river." 
Quoth Tom, a crown lawyer, " Abandon your fears ; 
As a bridge, it can only be tried by its piers." 



SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS 

S^ljo pub iiT the ^fouitb pctubc of Ibc Jttnckcutlj Ccnturg; 
OR FROM 1830 TO 1839 INCLUSIVE. 



SentJiCim, Jerewj' (1748-1832), the celebrated writer on Political Eco- 
nomy, was distinguished as an author and '' utilitarian philosopher"^ for 
more than half a century. His various treatises and tracts, over lifty in 
number, \\\\on Political Economii, Civil and Penal Legislation, Theory of 
Punishments, Principles of Morals and Politics, &c. &c., were published in 
1843, in eleven volumes, octavo. 

1 So called because he made "utility" the I science and the revealed will of God the stuml- 
standard of right and wrong, — au unexcep- i ard of right and wrong! Benthani's motto 



tionable standard if man were omniscient, but 
absurd as he is really constitnteil, " not know- 
ing what a day may bring forth." What one 
would call ?<.<;r/i;^, another might call uselexs; 
and what all might consider useful this year 
might be found most pernicious ten or fifty 
years hence. How absurdly, then, do all 
moralists fail who make any thing but con- 



was, "The greatest hapiiiness of the greatest 
number," which he pushed to an absurd ex- 
treme; besides that it leaves the means by 
which that "greatest happiness" is to be at- 
tained and extended as undecided as ever, — in 
short, leaves the whole subject to come back ; 
again and to be pronounced upon by the ever- | 
varying judgments and opinions of men. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



293 



^lirt07iy £Jdwa7*d (1794-1836), Eegius Professor of Divinity in the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, published Testimony of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the 
Divinity of Christ, 1826 ; Inquiry into the Heresies of the Apostolic Age, 
1830 ; History of the Christian Church to the Conversion of Constantiney 
1836, &c. &c. 

^utle)\ Chai^les (1750-1832), a jurist, whose legal publications were 
numerous. His Horcz Biblicce, 1797, — an historical and literary account 
of the text, early versions, and printed editions of the Old and New Tes- 
taments, — was one of his most popular works. In 1822 appeared the first 
part, and in 1827 the second part, of his Reminiscences, which contains 
some very interesting sketches of the distinguished men of his time, — 
Burke, Pitt, Fox, Erskine, &c. &c. 

Carr, Jo?in, — "Sir John" (1772-1832), — was a tourist quite celebrated in 
his day, and author of The Stranger in France, 1803 ; Stranger in Irelandy 
1806; Tour through Holland, 1807, &c. &c., — works now but little 
esteemed. 

Car7nnglo)i, JVoel Tho77ias (1777-1830), a Devonshire poet, published 
The Banks of Taniar ; Dartmoor (his best poem); My Native Village; and 
some miscellaneous pieces. 

Clarke, ^dam (1760-1832), an eminent minister and profound Oriental 
scholar of the Wesleyan Methodists, published in 1802 an excellent 
Bibliographical Dictionary. But the great work of his life, and that by 
which he will be forever known and honored, was his edition of the 
Bible illustrated with a commentary and critical notes, into which were 
compressed all the results of his varied reading; the first volume ap- 
peared in 1810, the eighth and last in 1826. 

Cobbett, William (1762-1835), a miscellaneous English writer, will be 
remembered for his Rural Rides, his Cottage Economy, his works on 
America, and his Political Register. He had little taste, and less fixed 
political principle. Jeremy Bentham said of him, ''IJis malevolence 
and lying are beyond any thing." 

Cole??ia?i, Geor^ge, " the Younger" (1762-1836), London, was manager of 
the Haymarket Theatre, and Elxaminer of Plays. Comedies : ^Ae Iron 
Chesty Heir-at-Law, The Poor Gentleman, Love Laughs at Locksrrmhs, John 
Bxdl, &c. Comic poems: The Newcastle Apothecary; Lodgings for Single 
Gentlemen. This last is founded on the story of Will Waddle, who hired 
a room in a house in London, wliere he saw the sign, " Lodgings to 
Let." He is thus described : — 

"But Will was so fat, he appear'd like a ton, 
Or like two single gentlemen roird-into one." 

Poor Will found that he perspired very profusely every night, and his 
flesh wasted away alarmingly, so that 

" In six months his acquaintance began much to doubt him, 
For his skin, like a lady's loose gown, hung about him." 

He sends for the doctor, who does him no good : he then sends for the 
landlord, and begins to abuse him, saying, — 



1 After the condemnation of The Iron Chest, 
he writes thus : — " Lest my father's memory 
may be injured by mistakes, and lest, in the 
confusion of after-time, the translator of 
Teroice, and the author of The Jealous Wife, 



should be supposed guilty of The Iron Chest, 
I shall, were I to reach the patriarchal lon- 
gevity of Methuselah, continue (in all my 
dramatic publications) to subscribo myself 
George Coleman the younger." 



25« 



294 SUPPLEMENTAR Y A UTHOPS. 

" ' Sir, do you know 
I'm the fat single gentleman six months ago?' 
Quoth the landlord, ' Till now I ne'er had a dispute; 
I've let lodgings ten years ; I'm a baker to boot ; 
In airing your sheets, sir, ray wife is no sloven ; 
And your bed is immediately over my oven /' " 

At this, "Will decamps in no small haste, saying, as he goes, — 
■'' ' But I'd rather not perish while you make your bread.' " 

Cotton, Caleb C, author of the well-known work, Lacon^ or Many Things 
in Few Words; addressed to those who think. He was vicar of Kew and 
Petersham ; lived for some time in this country ; went to France, where 
he died in 1832. His chief work was so popular that it reached the 
sixth edition within a year. 

Gait, Jb/in (1779-1839), of Ayrshire, Scotland, after being a custom-house 
clerk at Greenock, a law-student at Lincoln's Inn, and a traveller in 
various parts of Europe, settled down at last in Edinburgh as a writer of 
Scottish novels. In this sphere he was eminently successful ; and his 
Annals of the Parish, and Lawrie Todd, or the Settlers, still maintain a 
very high position among fictitious writings. He also wrote a Life of 
Benjamin West, Historical Pictures, The Provost, The Wandering Jew, &c. 
&c. In 1820 he wrote for Blackwood's Magazine The Ayrshire Legatees, 
— an amusing narrative in a series of letters. 

Gillies, John (1747-1836), — ''historiographer to his Majesty for Scot- 
land," — published The History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Con- 
quests, written with ability, though in quite a monarchical spirit ; and a 
History of the World from Alexander to Augustus, 1807. He also trans- 
lated Aristotle's Rhetoric, 1823, &c. 

Godwin, WiUiani (1756-1836), after being five years a ''dissenting" 
minister near London, settled in the metropolis and devoted himself to 
literature,^ In 1793 he published his famed Inquiry concerning Political 
Justice, in the second edition of which he recanted many of the wild, 
revolutionary, and dangerous sentiments in the first. The next year ap- 
peared The Adventures of Caleb Williams, — a novel of power, but of ques- 
tionable influence. His other works were — A Life of Chaucer; Fleetwood, 
ajjfcvel, in three volumes; a Treatise on Population, in refutation of Mal- 
thus ; History of the Republic of England, in four volumes, &c. 

Grant, Afrs. ^9inie (1754-1838), was the widow of a Presbyterian 
clergyman " of Laggan," Scotland. Her Letters from the Mountains, de- 
scribing Highland scenery and manners, are deservedly admired. She 
also wrote Memoirs of an American Lady (Mrs. Schuyler, widow of Colonel 
Philip Schuyler, d. 1757), and An Essay on the Superstitions of the Scotch 
Highlanders. Her poem on The Highland Poor is very touching. 

Sbpe, Thomas (1770-1831), one of the merchant princes of England, was 
a descendant of the wealthy family of the Hopes of Amsterdam, where 
the firm Hope Brothers existed for half a century. Thomas settled in 
England, and embellished his princely mansion with the most costly pic- 
tures, sculptures, &c. In 1805 he published an elegant folio volume of 
drawings and descriptions, entitled Household Furniture and Decorations. 
As a literary man he is known by his Anastatius, or Memoirs of a 3foder7i 
Greek at the Close of the Eighteenth Century, a brilliant romance. It was 
published anonymously ; but so powerfully was it written that many 



1 He married Lady Mary Wollstonecraft, the I their only child was Mary, who became the 
celebrated author of The Eights of Woman: \ second wife of the poet Shelley. 



i 



SUPPLEMENTAR Y A UTHORS. 295 

attributed the authorship to Byron. For many years it had a high repu- 
tation, but is now seldom read. 

Zander, Wchai^d (1804-1834), Cornwall, England, has the honor of dis- 
covering and determining the course of the Niger. In conjunction with 
his brother John, he published, in 1 832, Journal of an Expedition to explore 
the Course and Termination of the Niger, in three volumes. 

ZesUe, Jb//n,—''^iY John" (1766-1832),— was a celebrated natural philo- 
sopher, of the Scotch school, and Professor of Mathematics in the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh. He was the author of many ingenious inventions ; 
but he is now best known for his Discourse upon Tlie Progress of Mathe- 
matical and. Physical Science during the Eighteenth Century, being the fifth 
dissertation in the first volume of the Encyclopcedia Britannica. 

J^cCrie, Thomas (1772-1835), a Scotch clergyman, is celebrated as the 
author of the Life of John Knox, and A Life of Andrew Melville. In 1817 
he published in the Edinburgh Christian Listructor a series of papers vindi- 
cating the Covenanters from the distorted view Walter Scott gives of them 
in Old Mortality. 

Ma?^sh, Herbert (1751-1839), Bishop of Peterborough, is chiefly known 
as the translator of Michaelis's Litroduction to the New Testament. He 
is the author of many valuable works in divinity, the chief of which is 
his Lectures on Divinity, which embraces numerous topics of Biblical 
criticism and interpretation, and also discusses the genuineness, authen- 
ticity, and credibility of the Scriptures. 

Majme, Jb/i?i (1761-1836), a Scotch poet, published a humorous and de- 
scriptive poem, The Siller Gun;^ also a short poem called Halloween, and 
the fine ballad of Logan Braes. 

Ji€ill, t/atnes (1773-1836), a Scotch metaphysician, political economist, and 
historian. In his Elements of Political Economy he advocated many of 
the progressive views of Jeremy Bentham, and in his Analysis of the 
Phenomena of the Human Mind opposed the views of Mackintosh. But 
his great work, in his capacity as historian, is his History of British India, 
in five volumes, published in 1817. 

Mbthern^ell, jniUam (1797-1835), a Scotch poet, is kno^vn best by his 
Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern (1827), a collection of Scotch ballads, pre- 
faced by a very valuable historical introduction. 

JYlcoU, Robert (1814-1837), a Scotch poet, wrote We are Brethren a'; 
Thoughts of Heaven, and other occasional pieces and songs. 

!PlcAen, Andreii' (1788-1833), a Scotchman, was the author of Tales and 
Sketches of the West of Scotland; The Dominies Legacy, a novel, in three 
volumes; Traditionary Stories of Old Families, &c. 

Torter, Anna Maria (1780-1832), of Irish birth but of Scotch resi- 
dence, was the authoress of numerous novels and tales, which amount 
altogether to about fifty volumes. The chief of these are — Artless Tcdes, 
1793; The Hungarian Brothers, 1807; Ballad Bomances, and Other Poems, 
1811 ; The Fast of St. Magdcden, &c. &c. These are now seldom read. 
She must not be confounded with her sister Jane, who died in 1850, the 
authoress of Thaddeus of Warsaw and The Scottish Chiefs. 

Cringle, Thomas (1788-1834), a Scotch poet, concerned in the establish- 

1 The subject of the poem is an ancient ens- | being a small silver tube presented as a prize 
torn in Dumfries, called " Shooting for the to the best marksman. 
Siller Gun," instituted by James VI., the gun | 



296 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



ment of BlacJcwood^s Magazine, editor of Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, &c., 
author of Scenes of Teviotdale, Ephemerides, and other poems which dis- 
play fine feeling and cultivated taste. His Poetical Works, ivith a Sketch 
of his Life, was prepared by Leitch Ritchie. He deserves to be remem- 
bered for his beautiful song, composed as he was setting sail with a colony 
for South Africa, entitled 



THE EMIGRANTS' SONG. 



Home of our hearts, our fathers' home! 

Land of the brave aud free ! 
The keel is flashing through the foam 

That hears us far from thee. 

We setk a wild and distant shore, 
Beyond the Atlantic main ; 



We leave thee to return no more, 
Nor view thy clifl's again. 

But may dishonor blight our fame, 
And quench our household fires, 

"When we or ours forget thy name. 
Green island of our sires ! 



^oscoe, yfilllam (1753-1831), was a native of Liverpool, of humble 
parentage, who, by his own merits and industry, rose to great eminence as 
a merchant and banker, and became a member of Parliament. His Life 
of Lorenzo de Medici, 1795, two volumes quarto, and his Life and Pontificate 
of Leo X., 1808, four volumes quarto, have given him high rank as a his- 
torian and man of letters. His edition of Pope, in ten volumes, is the best 
edition of that poet. 

Sniif?i, JiVlllain (1769-1839), Oxfordshire, founder of English Geology. 
Works, Geological Map of England, Organic Remains, &c. 

Soi?i€hyy V^/tl/am (1757-1833), London, an officer of the dragoons, 
quitted the army in 1780, and devoted himself to literature. Works, 
tragedy of Orestes, sacred poem Saul, and a poem on Italy; but he is now 
best known for his transhitions of the Iliad and Odyssey, generally 
esteemed spirited and faithful. 

Spencer, inilfam !Eoberi (1770-1834), author of Beth Gelert, and minor 
poems ; translator of the Lenore of the German lyric poet Burger. He 
will be remembered for his beautiful verses, 

TOO LATE I STAYED. 



Too late I stayed, — forgive the crime; 

Unheeded flew the hours; 
How noiseless falls the foot of Time 

That only treads on flowers ! 

What eye with clear account remarks 

The ebbing of the glass, 
When all its sands are diamond sparks, 

That dazzle as they pass I 



Oh, who to sober measurement 
Time's happy swiftness brings. 

When birds of Paradise have lent 
Their plumage for his wings ! 

Too late I stayed, — forgive the crime ; 

Unheeded flew the hours; 
For noiseless falls the foot of Time 

That only treads on flowers ! 



Taylor y William (1765-1836), of Norwich, is chiefly known as a trans- 
lator of German poetry. The Lenore of Burger, the Nathan of Lessing, 
the Iphigenia of Goethe, and the Bride of Messina, by Schiller, are his 
translations. 



CARPENTER. 297 



LANT CARPENTER, 1780-18JfO. 

Lant Carpenter, the third son of George Carpenter, a carpet-manufacturer 
of Kidderminster, was born at that place on the 2d of September, 1780. He 
completed his professional studies at the University of Glasgow, where he ac- 
quitted himself with so much credit that the degree of LL.D. was conferred 
upon him at an unusually early period of life. After leaving Glasgow, he was 
for a time librarian of the Liverpool Athenaeum 5 but he soon settled as a 
minister over a congregation in Exeter, and, after being there some years, he 
removed to Bristol and took charge of the Unitarian church, in which connection 
he continued to the closing year of his life. He died on the 5th of April, 1840. 
He had embarked from Naples (whither he had gone for his health) on that 
day for Leghorn, and at ten o'clock p.m. was seen, for the last time, walking 
the deck of the vessel. It was a dark and stormy night, and, as he was pros- 
trated by sea-sickness, probably in one of the lurches of the vessel he lost his 
balance and fell overboard. His body was washed on shore about fifty miles 
from Eome. 

Dr. Carpenter was distinguished by the possession of great benevolence and 
ardent piety. He entered with a peculiar zeal into every thing which he 
undertook, and his labors were always in the line of what is favorable to the 
best interests of man. He was held in affectionate esteem by his congregation, 
and was regarded with respect by all who knew him. "While engaged in his 
ministerial duties he was for many years at the head of a school, and employed 
himself in lecturing and in writing for the press. Besides sermons and works 
connected with the Unitarian controversy, he published An Introduction to the 
Geography of the New Testament; Plain Rules and Catalogue of a Library for 
Young Persons ; Dissertations on the Duration of our Saviour' s Ministry ; and the 
Chronological Arrangeme^it of the Gospel Records. But the work by which he is 
best known — and a most admirable work it is — is that entitled Principles of 
Education, Pntellectual, Moral, and Physical. He also wrote, in conjunction 
with the Kev. W. Shepherd and the Eev. J. Joyce, Systematic Education, or Ele- 
mentary Instruction in the Various Departments of Literature and Science. From 
this very instructive book, and one peculiarly adapted for the mental and 
moral improvement of the young, I select the following excellent and timely 
remarks upon 

THE REGULATION OF THE SENSIBLE PLEASURES. 

Suppose tliat any one endeavored to gratify the impulse of his 
bodily appetites without any restraint from the virtues of temper- 
ance and chastity : he would soon destroy his bodily faculties, — • 
thus rendering the objects of the sensible pleasures useless, — and 
he woukl precipitate himself into pain, diseases, and death. " This 
is a plain matter of observation, verified every_ day by the sad 
example of loathsome, tortured wretches that occur which way 
soever we turn our eyes, — in the streets, in private families, in 



298 CARPENTER. 

hospitals, in palaces." Positive misery, and the loss even of 
sensible pleasure, are too inseparably connected with intemper- 
ance and every kind of impurity, to leave room for doubt, even 
to the most skeptical. The sensual appetites must, therefore, be 
regulated by, and made subservient to, some other part of our 
natures ; otherwise we shall miss even the sensible pleasures which 
we might have enjoyed, and shall fall into the opposite pains, 
which are, in general, far greater and more exquisite than the 
sensible pleasures. 

The same conclusion also follows from the fact that inordi- 
nate indulgence in sensual gratification destroys the mental facul- 
ties, exposes to external inconveniences and pains, is totally in- 
consistent with the duties and pleasures of benevolence and piety, 
and is all along attended with the secret reproaches of the moral 
sense and the horrors of a guilty mind. Such is the constitution 
of our frame, that the formation of mental feelings and affections 
cannot be altogether prevented ; but an inordinate pursuit of 
sensible pleasures converts the mental affections into a source of 
pain, and impairs and cuts off' the intellectual pleasures. 

Upon the lowest principles of self-interest, therefore, the plea- 
sures of sensation ought not to be made the primary pursuit of life. 
Even a mere prudential regard to our own present happiness re- 
quires that they should be submitted to the precepts of benevo- 
lence, piety, and the moral sense. 

By this steady adherence to moderation, we are no losers even 
with respect to sensible pleasures themselves ; for by these means 
our senses and bodily powers are preserved in their best state and 
as long as is consistent with the necessary decay of the body ; and 
this moderation and its beneficial consequences directly tend to 
inspire the mind with perpetual serenity, cheerfulness, and good 
will, and with gratitude to the Giver of all good. 

" The only rule with respect to our diet," says Dr. Priestley, in 
his Institutes, " is to prefer those kinds and that quantity of food 
w^hich most conduce to the health and vigor of our bodies. What- 
ever in eating or drinking is inconsistent with and obstructs this 
end is wrong, and should carefully be avoided ; and every man's 
own experience, assisted with a little information from others, 
will be sufficient to inform him what is nearly the best for him- 
self in both these respects, so that no person is likely to injure 
himself throi^gh mere mistake." 

It is sufficiently obvious that it is the benevolent affections 
which give the chief value and highest interest to the sensible 
pleasures arising from the intercourse of the sexes ; and it also 
appears tiiat these pleasures were designed by the great Author 
of our frame to be one chief means of transferring our affection 
and concern from ourselves to others. If, therefore, this great 
source of benevolence be corrupted or perverted, the social atfec- 



CARrENTER. 299 

tions depending on it will also be perverted, and degenerate into 
selfishness or malevolence. It is more or less corrupted or per- 
verted by every indulgence of the passions out of those limits 
which reason and sound and comprehensive experience prescribe, 
equally with the revealed laws of God, as best promoting the 
great ends for which they were implanted in our frame. 

These limits are fixed by the marriage institutions, which philo- 
sophy as well as religion cannot fail to acknowledge as of the 
utmost importance to the happiness and improvement of man- 
kind. The direct tendency of these institutions is to promote the 
comfort and moral elevation of that sex to whom Providence has, 
in a peculiar degree, intrusted the physical care of infancy and 
early childhood, and the commencement of the habits on which 
the welfare of the next race depends ; to whom is committed the 
delightful task of first developing the powers of the understand- 
ing and cultivating and refining the aftections. Independently 
of this more indirect influence, they essentially aid in the proper 
care and the mental and moral culture of the rising generation. 
They supply a constant and invaluable stimulus for the activity 
and abilities of the parents. They call into exercise and cherish 
in the child those charities which are the root of general benevo- 
lence and bear a close relation to the afiections of piety. And 
the moral union which they produce between those who form the 
conjugal relation has a direct and efficacious tendency to promote 
in them the great ends of life, as well as to refine and dignify its 
present satisfactions and endearments. 

To produce the best effects, this union must be inviolable and 
for life; and it should ever be attended with mutual esteem and 
tenderness, with mutual deference, forbearance, confidence, aid, 
and syn^pathy. 

The laws of our frame, the plain dictates of experience and ob- 
servation, and the express and authoritative precepts of the Scrip- 
tures, all concur in pointing to steady self-control as the safest, 
the wisest, and the happiest course, and in directing to avoid, 
with strict caution, every violation of purity and chastity. Ogden 
well observes, on this subject, " Irregularity has naturally no 
limits : one excess draws on another ;" " the most easy, therefore, 
as well as the most excellent way of being virtuous is to be so en- 
tirely." The laws of the gospel enjoin that we avoid the indul- 
gence even of impure desires. It is a strict, but it is also a bene- 
volent, morality. It checks the evil where it is easiest, Avhere 
almost alone it is possible eflfectually to check it, — at the source. 

Leaving out of view the mischievous and commonly irreme- 
diable effects of imjiurity of every kind on the health of the 
bodily system, it is a weighty consideration that licentiousness 
corrupts and depraves the mind and moral character more than 
any single species of vice whatsoever. That ready perception of 



300 CARPENTER. 

guilt, that prompt and decisive resolution against it, which forms 
one grand feature in a virtuous character, is seldom found in 
persons addicted to these indulgences. They prepare an easy 
admission for every sin that seeks it : they are, in low life, usually 
the first stage in men's progress to the most desperate w^icked- 
ness; and, in high life, to that lamented dissoluteness of prin- 
ciple which manifests itself in a profligacy of public conduct, 
and a contempt of the obligations of religion and moral probity. 
Add to this, that habits of libertinism incapacitate and indispose 
the mind for all intellectual, moral, and religious pleasures, 
which is a great loss to any man's happiness. 

The moral instructor, who is anxious for the welfare of the 
young, must feel solicitous to induce them to shun the beginning 
of evils so destructive to their peace and welfare; and he cannot 
fail to urge them to avoid every kind of indecent language. The 
advice of the heathen moralist cannot be too forcibly recom- 
mended or too cautiously observed.^ The Scripture precepts are 
express on this point ; they require us to avoid all " corrupt com- 
munication ;" and they point to a future account of our words, as 
well as of our actions. 

In innumerable instances, the first stej) to ruin has been in- 
dulging in impure conversation. 

To give the dictates of reason, religion, and conscience their 
due influence, the disposition to self-restraint should be early and 
steadily cherished by those who have the care of the young ; and 
after they arrive at that period in which the passions too often 
acquire the ascendency, it should be carefully exercised by them- 
selves. Next to the direct culture and exercise of religious 
principle, nothing can be more eflectual than a full and judi- 
cious employment of their time in the various engagements of 
their station, in the occupations to which benevolence prompts, 
in the acquisition of useful knowledge, and in cheerful and 
active, but innocent, recreation. If habits are formed of indo- 
lence, and of unrestrained indulgence in sleep, in diet, and in 
mere amusement, it is in vain to. look for that self-control which 
was declared to be " wisdom's root," by one who, through the 
want of it, blighted his fairest prospects and sunk into an un- 
timely grave. 

If we are asked by any of our young readers how they may 
pass through the present period of their lives with most of honor 
and of solid enjoyment, and at the same time make the best 



1 Nil dictu foedum \isuque hsec limina tangat, 
Intra qu£e puer est. 

Juv. Sat. xiv. 44. 

"Far from the walls -where children dwell, 
Immodest sights, immodest words repel; 
The place is sacred." 



ARNOLD. 301 

preparation for future respectability, usefulness, and happiness, 
we should unhesitatingly answer, — Think nothing allowable, in 
word or action, which you feel your conscience condemn, and of 
which you could 7iot speak to a respected friend, — cherish an ha- 
bitual and operative sense of the Divine presence and your own 
accountableness, and remember that "/le who despiseth small things 
shall fall by little and little.'' 



TH03IAS ARNOLD, 1795-18^. 

Dr. Thomas Arnold was born at Cowes, Isle of Wight, on the 13th of June, 
1795. He received his preparatory education at Winchester School, and went 
thence, in 1811, to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1814 his name was 
placed in the first class in classical literature, and in the next year he was 
elected fellow of Oriel College, when he gained the chancellor's prize for the 
two university essays, Latin and English, for the years 1815 and 1817. In 
December, 1818, he wa§ ordained deacon at Oxford. In 1819 he settled at 
Laleham, where he remained for the next nine years, taking seven or eight 
young men as private pupils in preparation for the universities. In 1827 he 
was elected head master of the school at Eugby. On the death of Dr. Nares, 
in 1841, he was oflfered the Regius professorship of modern history at Oxford, 
which he accepted, without resigning his place at Rugby, but the very next 
year, 1842, on the 12th of June, he died on the day that completed his forty- 
seventh year. 

It is impossible, in the limits necessarily assigned to these biographical 
notices, to do justice to the intellectual, moral, and religious character of this 
eminently great and good man, No other English scholar of the present cen- 
tury has exerted a wider or more happy influence on the literary and reli- 
gious world. In whatever light we view him, either as a scholar, an his- 
torian, a schoolmaster, a theologian, or as a man, he commands our highest 
respect and warmest admiration. 

As a scholar. Dr. Arnold was distinguished for his deep and varied learning, 
and for his extensive and accurate classical attainments. He was particu- 
larly fond of Grecian literature, and his edition of Thucydides gave proof of his 
accurate Greek scholarship, and of his discriminating taste as a critic. But, 
what was better than all, he was a Christian scholar, and aimed to make him- 
self and his pupils look upon knowledge not as an end, but as a means to 
higher and more enlarged usefulness. 

As an historian, he shows in his own most instructive Lectures on Modern 
History, in his History of Rome, and of The Later Roman Commonwealth, what 
history ought to be, and how it should be studied. His History of Rome is 
undoubtedly the best history in the language; and to its composition the author 
brought the very highest qualifications of learning and of religious principle. 
"He saw God in history, and felt that righteousness exalts a nation, and that 
sin is not merely a reproach to a people, but that it introduces rottenness and 
decay into its very heart." 

26 



302 



ARNOLD. 



It was as a schoolmaster, however, that Dr. Arnold was strikingly great. 
"Teaching was the business of his life, and in instruction his greatness was 
most conspicuous. His spirit was instinct with generous sympathy, which 
delights in contact with the freshness and ardor of youth." ^ When he entered 
Rugby School, it was at a very low ebb, but it soon rose rapidly in public esti- 
mation, and the success of its pupils at the universities was marked and 
striking. He was not only an admirable scholar and skilful instructor, but he 
had that enthusiastic love for literature, and of every thing that tends to exalt 
and purify our nature, which seldom fails to inspire with the same ardor all 
minds that are susceptible of it. Yet his pupils were indebted to him for 
something far more valuable than learning, or the love of learning; for hia 
constant, and, for the most part, successful endeavors to implant in their minds 
the noblest principles, the most just sentiments, not by precept only, but by 
that without which precepts are generally unavailing, — example. 

As a theologian. Dr. Arnold was truly catholic in his views. He had little 
regard for systems oi theology: he went to the fountain-head, and in his in- 
terpretation and application of the Scriptures, he so signalized himself that, 
in the judgment of his friends, this was the sphere for which he was most 
highly fitted to shine with eminent usefulness. In theological controversy he 
showed great ability and exerted great influence. He was a reformer in church 
and state, and to reform he consecrated his most earnest zeal. 

As a man, he was remarkable for the uniform sweetness, the patience, and 
the forbearing meekness of his disposition. It was his constant aim to bring 
his religious principles into the daily practice of life, not by the continued in- 
troduction of religious phraseology, but by a single-hearted study to realize 
the Christian character. He was an ardent lover of truth, and when he found 
it, he uttered it with the utm*st fearlessness. "He was an innate Christian; 
the bad passions might almost be said to have been omitted in his constitution. 
But his truth and honesty were unflinchingly regardless of his own interest, 
or of temporary consequences." Such is an imperfect outline of the character 
of this great and good man.^ 

" Our readers must pass a day with Arnold. They will see of how homely 
and plain a thread, to all appearance, it was composed. Only, to make it more 
impressive, the day we will choose shall be his last. It differs in itself in no 
respect from other days, except as it is more of a holiday, since it happens to 
be also the concluding day of the half year. On the morrow he was to shake 
his wings for Westmoreland. The morning is taken up with an examination 
in 'Ranke's History of the Popes.' Then come the distribution of prizes, the 
taking leave of the boys who are going, and all the mechanical details of 



1 Read an excellent article on Dr. Arnold in 
the 5th volume of the New Englander; also 
Edinburgh Review, Ixxvi. 357, and North 
British Review, ii. 403. 

2 " He will strike those who study him more 
closely as a complete character, — complete in 
its union of moral and intellectual gifts, and 
in the steady growth and development of both : 
for his greatness did not consist in the pre- 
eminence of any single quality, but in several 
remarkable powers, thoroughly leavened and 
pervaded by an ever-increasing moral noble- 
ness." — Quarterly Review, Ixxiv. 507. * 

" The basis of Arnold's morale reminds us of 



all we know of that of another celebrated 
schoolmaster (not very popular in his day, and 
no great favorite with high churchmen); we 
mean John Milton. There is the same purity 
and directness about them both ; the same pre- 
dominance of the graver, not to say sterner, 
elements ; the same confidence, vehemence, and 
elevation. They both so lived in their ' great 
Taskmaster's eye' as to verify Bacon's obser- 
vation in his Essay mi Atheism, — made them- 
selves of kin to God in spirit, and raised their 
nature by means of a higher nature than their 
own." — Edinburgh Review, Ixxxi. 202. 



ARNOLD. 303 

finishing for the holidays ; his usual walk and bath follow ; dinner next, where 
he talked with great pleasure to several guests of his early geological studies 
under Buckland, and of a recent visit to Naseby with Thomas Carlyle. An 
interval in the evening leaves room for an earnest conversation with an old 
pupil on some differences in their views of the Tractarian theology; after 
which the day rounds off with an annual supper to some of the sixth-form 
boys. Arnold retired to bed, apparently in perfect health. But before laying 
down his head upon the pillow, from which he was never more to raise it, he 
put his seal upon this busy and cheerful day by an entry in his diary, which 
(reading it as we now read it) seems of prophetic import. Yet, in truth, these 
transitions had become so familiar to him that, in passing from what was most 
spiritual, he was hardly conscious of the change. He kept the communication 
between this world and the next so freely open — angels ascending and de- 
scending — that he blended the influences of both, of things temporal and 
things eternal, into one consistent whole. 

FROM HIS JOURNAL. 

Saturday Eveniiig, June 11. — The day after to-morrow is my 
birthday, if I am permitted to live to see it, — my forty-seventh 
birthday since my birth. How large a portion of my life on 
earth is already passed! And then, — what is to follow this life? 
How visibly my outward work seems contracting and softening 
away into the gentler employments of old age! In one sense, 
how nearly can I now say " Vixi" ! and I thank God that, as far 
as ambition is concerned, it is, I trust, fully mortified. I have 
no desire other than to step back from my present place in the 
\vorld, and not to rise to a higher. Still, there are works which, 
with God's permission, I would do before the night cometh, espe- 
cially that great work, if I might be permitted to take part in it. 
But, above all, let me mind my own personal work, to keep 
myself pure, and zealous, and believing, — laboring to do God's 
will, yet not anxious that it should be done by me rather than 
by others, if God disapproves of my doing it. 

''What a midnight epitaph! How ominous and how unconscious! How 
tender and sublime ! He woke next morning, between five and six, in pain. 
It was angina pectoris. At eight o'clock he was dead !"i 

D03[INI0N OF NAPOLEON. 
Ten years afterwards there broke out by far the most alarming 
danger of universal dominion which had ever threatened Europe. 
The most military people in Europe became engaged in a war for 
their very existence. Invasion on the frontiers, civil Avar and all 
imaginable horrors raging within, the ordinary relations of life 
went to wrack, and every Frenchman became a soldier. It was 

1 Edinburgh Review, Ixxxi. 198. 



304 ARNOLD. 

a multitude numerous as the hosts of Persia, but animated by the 
courage and skill and energy of the old Romans. One thing 
alone was wanting, — that which Pyrrhus said the Romans wanted 
to enable them to conquer the world, — a general and a ruler like 
himself There was wanted a master-hand to restore and main- 
tain peace at home, and to concentrate and direct the immense 
military resources of France against her foreign enemies. And 
such an one appeared in Napoleon. Pacifying La Vendee, re- 
ceiving back the emigrants, restoring the church, remodelling 
the law, personally absolute, yet carefully preserving and main- 
taining all the great points which the nation had won at the 
revolution. Napoleon united in himself not only the power but 
the whole will of France, and that power and Avill were guided 
by a genius for war such as Europe had never seen since Csesar. 
The effect was absolutely magical. In November, 1799, he was 
made First Consul ; he found France humbled by defeats, his 
Italian conquests lost, his allies invaded, his own frontier 
threatened. He took the field in May, 1800, and in June the 
whole fortune of the war was changed, and Austria driven out 
of Lombardy by the victory of Marengo. Still the flood of the 
tide rose higher and higher, and every successive wave of its ad- 
vance swept away a kingdom. Earthly state has never reached 
a prouder pinnacle than when Napoleon in June, 1812, gathered 
his army at Dresden, — that mighty host, unequalled in all time, 
of four hundred and fifty thousand, not men merely, but effective 
soldiers, — and there received the homage of subject kings. And, 
now, what was the principal adversary of this tremendous power? 
by whom was it checked, and resisted, and put down ? By none, 
and by nothing, but the direct and manifest interposition of God. 
I know of no language so well fitted to describe that victorious 
advance to Moscow, and the utter humiliation of the retreat, as 
the language of the prophet with respect to the advance and sub- 
sequent destruction of the host of Sennacherib. " When they 
arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses," 
applies almost literally to that memorable night of frost in which 
twenty thousand horses perished, and the strength of the French 
army was utterly broken. Human instruments, no doubt, were 
employed in the remainder of the work ; nor would I deny to 
Germany and to Prussia the glories of that great year 1813, nor 
to England the honor of her victories in Spain, or of the crown- 
ing victory of Waterloo. But, at the distance of thirty years, 
those who lived in the time of danger, and remember its magni- 
tude, and now calmly review what there was in human strength 
to avert it, must acknowledge, I think, beyond all controversy, 
that the deliverance of Europe from the dominion of Napoleon 
was effected neither by Russia, nor by Germany, nor by England, 
but by the hand of God alone. 



ARNOLD. 305 



SUFFERINGS DURING THE SIEGE OF GENOA. 

In the autumn of 1799 the Austrians had driven the French 
out of Lombardy and Piedmont ; their last victory of Fossano or 
Genola had won the fortress of Coni or Cuneo, close under the 
Alps and at the very extremity of the plain of the Po ; the 
French clung to Italy only by their hold of the Riviera of Genoa, 
the narrow strip of coast between the Apennines and the sea, 
which extends from the frontiers of France almost to the mouth 
of the Arno. Hither the remains of the French force were col- 
lected, commanded by General Massena ; and the point of chief 
importance to his defence was the city of Genoa. Napoleon had 
just returned from Egypt, and was become First Consul ; but he 
could not be expected to take the field till the following spring, 
and till then Massena was hopeless of relief from without ; every 
thing Avas to depend on his own pertinacity. The strength of his 
army made it impossible to force it in such a position as Genoa ; 
but its very numbers, added to the population of a great city, held 
out to the enemy a hope of reducing it by famine ; and as Genoa 
derives most of its supplies by sea. Lord Keith, the British naval 
commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, lent the assistance of 
his naval force to the Austrians, and, by the vigilance of his 
cruisers, the whole coasting trade right and left along the Riviera 
was effectually cut off. It is not at once that the inhabitants of 
a great city, accustomed to the daily sight of well-stored shops 
and an abundant market, begin to realize the idea of scarcity, or 
that the wealthy classes of society, who have never known any 
other state than one of abundance and luxury, begin seriously to 
conceive of famine. But the shops were emptied, and the store- 
houses began to be- drawn upon, and no fresh supply or hope of 
supply appeared. Winter passed away, and spring returned, so 
early and so beautiful on that garden-like coast, sheltered as it is 
from the north winds by its belt of mountains, and open to the 
full rays of the southern sun. Spring returned, and clothed the 
hill-sides w^ithin the lines with its fresh verdure. But that verdure 
was no longer the mere delight of the careless eye of luxury, re- 
freshing the citizens by its liveliness and softness when they rode 
or walked up thither from the city to enjoy the surpassing beauty 
of the prospect. The green hill-sides were now visited for a very 
different object : ladies of the highest rank might be seen cutting 
up every plant which it was possible to turn to food, and bearing 
home the common weeds of our road-sides as a most precious 
treasure. The French general pitied the distress of the people ; 
but the lives and strength of his garrison seemed to him more 
important than the lives of the Genoese ; and such provisions as 
remained were reserved in the first place for the French army. 
Scarcity became utter want, and want became famine. In the 

26* 



306 



ARNOLD. 



most gorgeous palaces of that gorgeous city, no less than in the 
humblest tenements of its humblest poor, death was busy ; not the 
momentary death of battle or massacre, nor the speedy death of 
pestilence, but the lingering and most miserable death of famine. 
Infants died before their parents' eyes ; husbands and wives lay 
down to expire together. A man whom I saw at Genoa in 1825 
told me that his father and two of his brothers had been starved 
to death in this fatal siege. So it went on, till in the month of 
June, when Napoleon had already descended from the Alps into 
the plain of Lombardy, the misery became unendurable, and 
Massena surrendered. But, before he did so, twenty thousand 
innocent persons, old and young, women and children, had died 
by the most horrible of deaths which humanity can endure. 
Other horrors which occurred besides during this blockade I pass 
over; the agonizing death of twenty thousand innocent and help- 
less persons requires nothing to be added to it. 

It is astonishing how, amid all his public duties, Dr. Arnold found time to 
maintain such an extensive epistolary correspondence ; and I think it would 
be difficult, if not impossible, to find so many wise and practical remarks 
upon men and things, in religion, literature, politics, <fec., in the letters of any 
other English author, as are to be found in his letters. ^ From th%m I select 
the following — detached, indeed, but most suggestive and instructive — senti- 
ments : — 

the encouragements and dtscouragements of the 
schoolmaster:^ 

To Sir J. Pasley—182S. 

Since I began this letter I have had some of the troubles of 
school-keeping, and one of those specimens of the evils of boy- 
nature which make me always unwilling to undergo the responsi- 
bility of advising any man to send his son to a public school. 
There has been a system of persecution carried on by the bad 
against the good; and then, when complaint was made to me, 
there came fresh persecution on that very account; and, like- 
wise, instances of boys joining in it out of pure cowardice, both 
physical and moral, when, if left to themselves, they would have 
rather shunned it; and the exceedingly small number of boys 
who can be relied on for active and steady good on these occa- 
sions, and the way in which the decent and respectable of ordi- 



1 Read Life and Correspondence of Thomas 
Arnold, D.D., by Arthur P. Stanley, M.A., two 
volumes, — a very interesting and instructive 
■work. 

2 " The diligent and pious teacher, who pro- 
perly instructeth and traineth the young, can 
never be fully rewarded with money. If I 
were to leave my oflBce as preacher, I wvuld 



next choose that of schoolmaster or teacher; 
for I know that, next to preaching, this is the 
greatest, best, and moi-t useful vocation; and 
I am not <iuite sure which of the two is the 
better; for it is hard to relbrni old sinners, 
with whom the preacher has to do, while^the 
young tree can be made to bend without 
br^akini,"— Martin Lutuer. 



ARNOLD. 307 

naiy life (Carlyle's "shams") are sure on these occasions to 
swim with the stream and take part with the evil, make me 
strongly feel exemplified what the Scripture says about the strait 
gate and the wide one, — a view of human nature which, when 
looking on human life in its full dress of decencies and civiliza- 
tions, we are apt, I imagine, to find it hard to realize ; but here, 
in the nakedness of boy-nature, one is quite able to understand 
how there could not be found even ten righteous in a whole city. 
And how to meet this evil I really do not know ; but to find it 
thus rife after I have been years fighting against it, is so sicken- 
ing that it is very hard not to throw up the cards in despair, and 
upset the table. Bat then the stars of nobleness ivhich I see amid 
the darkness are so cheering, that one is inclined to stick to the ship 
again, and have another good try at getting her about. 

TRUE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL. 

To his sister Susannah — 1S30. 

]S^o one seems to me to understand our dangers, or at least to 
speak them out manfully. One good man, who sent a letter to 
the Times the other day, recommends that the clergy should 
preach subordination and obedience. I seriously say, God forbid 
they should ; for, if any earthly thing could ruin Christianity in 
England, it would be this. If they read Isaiah and Jeremiah 
and Amos and Habakkuk, they will find that the prophets, in a 
similar state of society in Judea, did not preach subordination 
only or chiefly, but they denounced Oppression, and amassing 
overgrown properties, and grinding the laborers to the smallest 
possible pittance ; and they denounced the Jewish high-church 
party for countenancing all these iniquities and prophesying 
smooth things to please the aristocracy. If the clergy would 
come forward as one man, from Cumberland to Cornwall, exhort- 
ing peaceableness on the one side, and justice on the other, de- 
nouncing the high rents and the game laws, and the carelessness 
which keeps the poor ignorant and then wonders that they are 
brutal, I verily believe they might yet save themselves and the 
state. 

INTERCOURSE WITH THE POOR. 

To J, C. Vaxcghan, Esq. — 1S35. 

I am glad that you have made acquaintance with some of the 
good poor. I quite agree with you that it is most instructive to 
visit them, and I think that you are right in what you say of their 
more lively faith. We hold to earth and earthly things by so 
many more links of thought, if not of affection, that it is far 
harder to keep our view of heaven clear and strong. When this 
life is so busy, and therefore so full of reality to us, another life 



308 ARNOLD. 

seems by comparison unreal. This is our condition, and its 
peculiar temptations ; but we must endure it, and strive to over- 
come them, for I think we may not try to flee from it. 

POPISH AND OXFORD VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY.^ 

To T. S. Pasleij, Bart— 1836. 

The Popish and Oxford view of Christianity is that the church 
is the mediator between God and the individual; that the church 
(i. e. in their sense, the clergy) is a sort of chartered corporation, 
and that by belonging to this corporation, or by being attached 
to it, any given individual acquires such and such privileges. 
This is a priestcraft, because it lays the stress, not on the relations 
of a man's heart toward God and Christ, as the gospel does, but 
on something wholly artificial and formal, — his belonging to a 
certain so-called society : and thus, — whether the society be alive 
or dead, — whether it really help the man in goodness or not, — 
still it claims to step in and interpose itself as the channel of 
grace and salvation, when it certainly is not the channel of salva- 
tion, because it is visibly and notoriously no sure channel of 
grace. Whereas, all who go straight to Christ, without thinking 
of the church, do manifestly and visibly receive grace, and have 
the seal of His Spirit, and therefore are certainly heirs of salva- 
tion. This, I think, applies to any and every church, it being 
always true that the salvation of a man's soul is effected by the 
change in his heart and life, wrought by Christ's Spirit ; and that 
his relation to any church is quite a thing subordinate and 
secondary : although, where the church is what it should be, it 
is so great a means of grace that its benefits are of the highest 
value. But the heraldic or succession view of the question I can 
hardly treat gravely : there is something so monstrously profane 
in making our heavenly inheritance like an earthly estate, to 
which our pedigree is our title. And, really, what is called suc- 
cession is exactly a pedigree, and nothing better ; like natural 
descent, it conveys no moral nobleness, — nay, far less than natural 
descent : for I am a believer in some transmitted virtue in a good 
breed, but the succession notoriously conveys none. So that to 
lay stress upon it, is to make the Christian church worse, I think, 
than the Jewish ; but the sons of God are not to be born of bloods 
(i. e. of particular races), nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
will of man (i. e. after any human desire to make out an outward 
and formal title of inheritance), but of God (i. e. of Him who 
can alone give the only true title to His inheritance, — the being 
conformed unto the image of his Son). I have written all this 

1 1 could not fairly and honestly represent I extract like this from such of his writings aa 
this great and good man without giving an | constituted a large portion of his life-work. 



ARNOLD. 



309 



in haste as to the expression, but not at all in haste as to the 
matter of it. But the simple point is this : does our Lord, or do 
his apostles, encourage the notion of salvation through the church ? 
or would any human being ever collect such a notion from the 
Scriptures ? Once begin with tradition and the so-called Fathers, 
and you get, no doubt, a very different view. This the Koman- 
ists and the Oxfordists say is a view required to modify and add 
to that of the Scripture. I believe that, because it does modify, 
add to, and wholly alter the view of the Scripture, it is therefore 
altogether false and anti-christian. 

LIVELINESS ESSENTIAL FOE A SCHOOLMASTER. 

To H. Balston, Esq—lS39. 

Another point to which I attach much importance is liveliness. 
This seems to me an essential condition of sympathy Avith creatures 
so lively as boys are naturally, and it is a great matter to make 
them understand that liveliness is not folly or thoughtlessness. 
Now, I think the prevailing manner among many valuable men 
at Oxford is the very opposite to liveliness ; and I think that this 
is the case partly with yourself; not at all from affectation, but 
from natural temper, encouraged, perhaps, rather than checked, 
by a belief that it is right and becoming. But this appears to 
me to be in point of manner the great difference between a clergy- 
man with a parish and a schoolmaster. It is an illustration of 
St. Paul's rule, " Kejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with 
them that weep." A clergyman's intercourse is very much with 
the sick and the poor, Avhere liveliness would be greatly mis- 
placed ; but a schoolmaster's is with the young, the strong, and 
the happy, and he cannot get on with them unless in animal 
spirits he can sympathize with them, and show them that his 
thoughtfulness is not connected w4th selfishness and weakness. 

OLD ENGLISH DIVINES—BUNYAN, 311 L TON. 

To Mr. Justice Coleridge— 1836. 

I have left off reading our divines, because, as Pascal said of 
the Jesuits, if I had spent my time in reading them fully, I 
should have read a great many very indifferent books. I never 
yet found one of them who was above mediocrity. But if I could 
find a great man among them, I would read him thankfully and 
earnestly.^ As it is, I hold John Bunyan to have been a man of 



1 His admiration of llie Pilgri-im's Progress 
was very great : — " I cannot trust myself," he 
used to say, " to read the account of "Christian 
going up to the Celestial gate, after his passage 
through the I'iver of Death.'' Aud when, in 



one of the foreign tours of his later years, he 
had read it through again, after a long in- 
terval, " I have always," he said, " been struck 
by its piety ; I am now struck equally, or even 
more, by its profound wisdom." 



310 



CUNNINGHAM. 



incomparably greater genius than any of them, and to have given 
a far truer and more edifying picture of Christianity. His Pil- 
grim's Progress seems to be a complete reflection of Scripture, 
with none of the rubbish of the theologians mixed up with it. I 
think that Milton — in his " lieformation in England," or in one 
of his " Tracts," I forget which — treats the church writers of his 
time, and their show of learning, utterly uncritical as it was, with 
the feeling which they deserved. 



ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, 178Jr-18J^. 

Allan Cunnixgham, a happy imitator of 'the old Scottish ballads, and a man 
of various talents, was the son of humble parents, and was born at Blackwood, 
Dumfriesshire, Scotland, December 7, 1784. After having received an ordinary 
school-education, he was apprenticed to a stone-mason, and for some years fol- 
lowed that business. But, growing weary of this, in 1810 he removed to London, 
and connected himself with the newspaper press. In 1814 he was selected by 
Sir Francis Chantry as a superintendent and assistant in his studio: and it is 
thought that that eminent sculptor is indebted to Cunningham for the*marks of 
imagination and fancy that appear in his works. He continued in tlie establish- 
ment of Chantry, at the same time constantly employing his indefatigable pen, 
till his death, which took place on the 29th of October, 1842. 

Allan Cunningham was a most industrious writer,^ and all his works, whether 
of prose or poetry, are instructive and pleasing in an unusual degree. He evi- 
dently puts his soul in all that he writes, and makes us feel because he feels first 
himself. Some of his smaller poems are perfect gems, and his dissertation upon 
the history and peculiarities of Scottish song exhibits a prose style of great 
clearness, eloquence, and power. From this I select the following. After dwell- 
ing with amiable partiality on the greater love of music and song which the 
Scotch possess, as compared with the English, he thus speaks of 



THE INFLUENCE OF SCOTLAND AND HER SONGS. 

Song followed the bride to the bridal chamber, and the corpse 
when folded in its winding-sheet, — the hag as she gratified her 
own malicious nature with an imaginary spell for her neighbor's 
harm, and her neighbor Avho sought to counteract it. Even the 
enemy of salvation solaced, according to a reverend authority, 
his conclave of witches with music and with verse. The soldier 
went to battle with songs and with shouts ; the sailor, as he lifted 
his anchor for a foreign land, had his song also, and with song 



1 The following works are from the prolific 
pen of Cunningham: — Gallery of Pictures, 2 
vols. ; Lives of Painters. Scul2^tors, Ac, 6 vols. ; 
Lord Eoldan, a Romance, 3 vols.; Maid of 
Elvar, a Poem; Paul Jones, a Romance,^ yo\s.; 



Sonr/s of Scotland, A: vols.; Traditionary Tdle^ 
of the Peasantry, 2 vols. ; Sir Michael Scott, a 
Romance, 3 vols.; Sir M. Maxwell, and Other 
Poems ; Life of Burns, &c. 



CUNNINGHAM. 311 

he welcomed again the reappearance of his native hills. Song 
seems to have been the regular accompaniment of labor : the mari- 
ner dipped his oar to its melody ; the fisherman dropped his net 
into the water while chanting a rude lyric or rhyming invocation ; 
the farmer sang while he consigned his grain to the ground ; the 
maiden, when the corn fell as she moved her sickle ; and the 
miller had also his welcoming song when the meal gushed warm 
from the mill. In the south, I am not sure that song is much 
the companion of labor ; but in the north there is no trade, how- 
ever toilsome, which has banished this charming associate. It is 
heard among the rich in the parlor, and among the menials in 
the hall : the shepherd sings on his hill, the maiden as she milks 
her ewes, the smith as he prepares his welding heat, the weaver 
as he moves his shuttle from side to side, and the mason, as he 
squares or sets the palace-stone, sings to make labor feel light- 
some and the long day seem short. * * * su 

The current of song has not always been poured forth in an 
unceasing and continued stream. Like the rivulets of the north, 
which gush out into rivers during the season of rain and subside 
and dry up to a few reluctant drops in the parching heat of sum- 
mer, it has had its seasons of overflow and its periods of decrease. 
Yet there have been invisible spirits at work, scattering over the 
land a regular succession of lyrics, more or less impressed with the 
original character of the people, the productions of random in- 
spiration, expressing the feelings and the story of some wounded 
heart, or laughing out in the fullest enjoyment of the follies of 
man and the pleasant vanities of woman. From them, and from 
poets to whose voice the country has listened in joy, and whose 
names are consecrated by the approbation of generations, many 
exquisite lyrics have been produced which find an echo in every 
heart, and are scattered wherever a British voice is heard, or a 
British foot imprinted. Wherever our sailors have borne our 
thunder, our soldiers our strength, and our merchants our enter- 
prise, Scottish song has followed, and awakened a memory of the 
northern land amid the hot sands of Egypt and the frozen snows 
of Siberia. The lyric voice of Caledonia has penetrated from 
side to side of the eastern regions of spice, and has gratified some 
of the simple hordes of roving Indians with a melody equalling 
or surpassing their own. Amid the boundless forests and mighty 
lakes and rivers of the western world, the songs which gladdened 
the hills and vales of Scotland have been awakened again by a 
kindred people ; and the hunter, as he dives into the wilderness, 
or sails down the Ohio, recalls his native hills in his retrospective 
strain. These are no idle suppositions which enthusiasm creates 
for national vanity to repeat. For the banks of the Ganges, the 
Ohio, and the Amazon, for the forests of America, the plains of 
India, and the mountains of Peru or Mexico, for the remotest 



312 CUNNINGHAM. 

isles of the sea, the savage shores of the north, and the classic I 
coasts of Asia or Greece, I could tell the same story which the ' 
Englishman told, who heard, two hundred years ago, the song of 
Bothwell Bank sung in the land of Palestine. 

Of Cunningham's poetry, the shorter pieces are decidedly the best: his more 
elaborate compositions fail to keep up the interest of the reader, ''He is sadly 
deficient in plot and constructivenessj and, although his eloquence and en- 
thusiasm never flag, the reader wearies, and cannot help deploring that these 
are often misdirected. He knew not where to stop, and continually perilled 
success from lack of critical discretion." 

THE TOWN AND COUNTRY CHILD. 

Child of the country ! free as air 
Art thou, and as the sunshine fair; 
Born like the lily, where the dew 
Lies odorous when the day is new ; 
Fed 'mid the May-flowers like the bee, 
Nursed to sweet music on the knee, 
Lull'd in the breast to that sweet tune 
Wliich winds make 'mong the woods of June: 
I sing of thee; — 'tis sweet to sing 
Of such a fair and gladsome thing. 

Child of the town ! for thee I sigh ; 
A gilded roof's thy golden sky. 
A carpet is thy daisied sod, 
A narrow street thy boundless wood, 
Thy rushing deer's the clattering tramp 
Of watchmen, thy best light's a lamp ; 
Through smoke, and not through trellised vines 
And blooming trees, thy sunbeam shines : 
I sing of thee in sadness ; where 
Else is wreck wrought in aught so fair! 



Child of the country ! on the lawn 
I see thee like the bounding fawn, 
Blithe as the bird Avhicli tries its wing 
The first time on the wings of Spring; 
Bright as the sun when from the cloud 
He comes as cocks are crowing loud; 
Now running, shouting, 'mid sunbeams, 
Now groping trouts in lucid streams, 
Now spinning like a mill-wheel round, 
Now hunting Echo's empty sound. 
Now climbing up some old, tall tree — 
For climbing's sake, — 'tis sweet to thee 
To sit where birds can sit alone, 
Or share with thee thy venturous throne. 

Child of the town and bustling street, 
What woes and snares await thv feet ! 



CUNNINGHAM. 318 

Thy paths are paved for five long miles, 
Thy groves and hills are peaks and tiles ; 
Thy fragrant air is yon thick smoke, 
Which shrouds thee like a mourning cloak; 
And thou art cabin'd and confined 
At once from sun, and dew, and wind, 
Or set thy tottering feet but on 
Thy lengthen'd walks of slippery stone. 
Fly from the town, sweet child ! for health 
Is happiness, and strength, and wealth. 
There is a lesson in each flower, 
A story in each stream and bower; 
On every herb o'er which you tread 
Are written words which, rightly read. 
Will lead you, from earth's fragrant sod, 
To hope, and holiness, and God. 



THE POETS BRIDAL-DAY SONGJ 

Oh ! my love's like the steadfast sun, 
Or streams that deepen as they run ; 
Nor hoary hairs, nor forty years, 
Nor moments between sighs and tears. 
Nor nights of thought, nor days of pain, 
Nor dreams of glory dream'd in vain. 
Nor mirth, nor sweetest song that flows 
To sober joys and soften woes. 
Can make my heart or fancy flee. 
One moment, my sweet wife, from thee. 

Even while I muse, T see thee sit 
In maiden bloom and matron wit; 
Fair, gentle as when first I sued, 
Ye seem but of sedater mood ; 
Yet my heart leaps as fond for thee 
As when, beneath Arbigland tree. 
We stay'd and woo'd, and thought the moon 
Set on the sea an hour too soon. 
Or linger'd 'mid the falling dew. 
When looks were fond and words were few. 

Though I see smiling at thy feet 
Five sons and ae fair daughter sweet. 
And time and care and birthiime woes 
Have dimm'd thine eye and touch'd thy rose, 
To thee, and thoughts of thee, belong 
Whatever charms me in tale or song. 
When words descend like dews unsought, 
With gleams of deep enthusiast thought, 
And Fancy in her heaven flies free. 
They come, my love, they come from thee. 



1 Some beautiful lines of yours in a former I terested in her. Pray offer her my kind re- 
number of the Literary Souvenir introduced membrances. — Mrs. Hemans to Allan Cunning- 
me to your wife, and made me feel much in- 1 ham. 

27 



314 CUNNINGHAM, 

Oh, when more thought Ave gave, of old, 
To silver, than some give to gold, 
'Twas sweet to sit and ponder o'er 
How we should deck our humble bower: 
'Twas sweet to pull, in hope, with thee, 
The golden fruit of Fortune's tree ; 
And sweeter still to choose and twine 
A garland for tliat broA^ of thine: 
A song-wreath which may grace my Jean, 
"While rivers flow, and woods grow green. 

At times there come, as come there ought, 
Grave moments of sedater thought, 
When Fortune froAvns, nor lends our night 
One gleam of her inconstant light ; 
And Hope, that decks the peasant's boAver, 
Shines like a rainbow through the shower ; 
Oh, then I see, while seated nigh, 
A mother's heart shine in thine eye, 
And proud resolve and purpose meek 
Speak of thee more than Avords can speak. 
I think this Avedded Avife of mine 
The best of all things not divine. 



A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA. 

A Avet sheet and a flowing sea, 

A wind that folloAvs fast. 
And fills the white and rustling sail, 

And bends the gallant mast ; 
And bends the gallant mast, my boys. 

While, like the eagle free. 
Away the good ship flies, and leaves 

Old England on the lee. 

Oh for a soft and gentle wind ! 

I heard a fair one cry ; 
But give to me the snoring breeze, 

And white waves heaving high ; 
And white Avaves heaving high, my boys, 

The good ship tight and- free — 
The Avorld of Avaters is our home. 

And merry men are we. 

There's tempest in yon horned moon, 

And lightning in yon cloud ; 
And hark the music, mariners, 

The Avind is piping loud ; 
The wind is piping loud, my boys. 

The lightning flashing free, — 
While the hollow oak our palace is. 

Our heritage the sea.^ 



1 1 look upon " A wet sheet and a flowing sea" as one of the best songs going. — Sir Walter 
ScoTX : Diary, IWi November, 1826. 



SOUTHEY. 



315 



ROBERT SOUTHEY, 177J^.-18J^3. 

This distinguished poet and prose writer was the son of a linen-draper in 
Bristol, and was born in that city on the 12th of August, 1774. After going 
through the ordinary preparatory course of study, he entered Baliol College, 
Oxford, in 1792, with the design of entering the church ; but as his religious 
views underwent a change, inclining to Unitarianism, he left the university in 
1794, and in the same year published his first poems, in conjunction with Mr. 
Lovell. Of his appearance and character at this time, Joseph Cottle thus 
speaks: — '*One morning, Robert Lovell called on me, and introduced Robert 
Southey. Never will the impression be effaced produced on me by this young 
man. Tall, dignified, possessing great suavity of manners; an eye piercing, 
with a countenance full of genius, kindliness, and intelligence. I gave him at 
once the right hand of fellowship, and, to the moment of his decease, that 
cordiality was never withdrawn. "* 

About this time he took part in the famous Pantisocratic scheme,2 "to which 
all the eager contributors brought golden theories, but so little of the more 
tangible coin that the Utopian project was necessarily relinquished." In No- 
vember of the following year (1795) he married Miss Fric-ker, of Bristol, the 
sister of Mrs. Coleridge.^ In the winter of the same year, while he was on his 
way to Lisbon, Joan of Arc was published. In the following summer he re- 
turned to Bristol, and in the next year removed to London, and entered Gray's 
Inn. He passed part of the years 1800 and 1801 in Portugal, and on returning 
to England he established himself at Keswick, in the Lake country, where he 
lived for the remainder of his life. In 1805 he published his Madoc,'^ and in 
1810 the Curse of Kehama.^ In 1813, on the death of Mr. Pye, Southey was 
appointed poet-laureate. In 1814 he published Roderic, the Last of the Goths, 
and in 1821 The Vision of Judgment. The same year he received his doctor's 
degree from the University of Oxford. In 1825 appeared The Tale of Parmguay, 
the latest of his longer poems. Besides these, he wrote a great number of smaller 
pieces of poetry, and numerous prose works, which have given him the charac- 
ter of one of the best prose-writers in the language, for a clear, vigorous, manly, 
and graceful style. Of these, the most important are intended treatments 
of historical subjects; and biographies of those poets whose works found in 
Southey a zealous advocate. He was a regular contributor for many years 



1 Meminiscences of Coleridge and Southey, p. 
4. Read North British Review, xii. 371, and 
xiii. 225 ; Edinburgh, Ixxxvii. 391 ; Gentlemen's 
Magazine, April, June, and September, 1850; 
London Athenseum, Mai'ch, 1850. 

2 See an account of this iu the notice of 
Coleridge. 

3 " Coleridge and Southey were brothers-in- 
law; and it would be scarcely possible to bring 
together two men of letters whose habits were 
more dissimilar. Southey wrought at litera- 
ture with all the regularity of a banker's 
clerk; his day was duly apportioned among 
separate tasks, and these it was his delight to 
fulfil with energy and punctuality. Coleridge, 



on the other hand, did nothing save under 
strong external compulsion or exti'aordinary 
internal impulse. Day after day he dawdled 
away his time in dreaming and in desulti)ry 
reading, and his genius was spent in grand de- 
signs and small performances." — Chambers's 
Book of Days. 

*3Iadoc is an epic poem, founded on the 
legend of a voyage made by a Welsh prince to 
America, in tlie twelfth century, and of his 
founding a colony there. 

5 In the Curse of Kehama are represente*! 
the awful forms of the Hindu Pantheon, and 
the vast and gorgeous imagery of Hindu 
poetry. 



316 



SOUTHEY. 



to the Quarterly Review,^ and was the author of that remarkable book, The 
Doctor.^ 

But ''excess of mental labor in every department of literature — poetry, his- 
tory, biography, criticism, and jshilosophy — continued, from year to year, with- 
out cessation, bowed his strong spirit at last, and obscured the genius which 
had so long cast glory upon the literature of the age." For three years before 
his death, his mind was so far gone that he was not able to recognize those who 
had been his companions from his youth. ^ Scarcely could his wife console 
herself with the poor hope that he recognized even her. He died at his re- 
Bidence in Keswick, on the 21st of March, 1843, in the sixty-ninth year of his 
age. "In all the relations of life, Mr. Southey was universally allowed, by 
those who knew him best, to be truly exemplary. His house at the Lakes was 
open to all who presented themselves with suitable introduction ; and there 
are few persons of any distinction, who have passed through that picturesque 
region, who have not partaken of his hospitality." He enjoyed a pension of 
three hundred pounds a year from the government, granted in 1835 by Sir 
Eobert Peel, and left personal property to the amount of twelve thousand 
pounds, and a very rich and valuable library, all the fruits of his own literary 
labors.* 

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. 

It was a summer evening, 

Old Kaspar's work was done, 
And he before his cottage-door 

Was sitting in the sun ; 



1 The following; is a list of his articles in the 
London Quarterh/, as given by .Tosepli Cottle 
in his Rfminisc'cnces, up to 1825. In No. 1, 
Baptist Mission in India; 2, Portuguese Litera- 
ture; 3, South Sea Missions — Lord Yalentia's 
Travels; 4, American Annals; 5, Life of Nel- 
son ; 6. Season at Tongataboo — Graham's Geor- 
gics; 'j'fObservador Portuguez: 8, Feroe Islands 
—On the Evangelical Sects; 11, Bell and Lan- 
caster; 12, The Inquisition— Montgomery's 
Poems; 13, Iceland; 14, French Revolutionists; 
15, Count Julian — Calamities of Authors; 16, 
Manufacturing System and the Poor ; 19, Bogue 
and Bennett's History of the Dissenters; 21, 
Nicobar Islands — Montgomery's World before 
the Flood; 22, 23, British Poets; 23, Oriental 
Memoirs ; 24, Lewis and Clarke's Travels— Barre 
Roberts; 25, Miot's Expedition to Egypt; 25, 
26, Life of Wellington; 28. Alfieri; 29, Me. La 
Roche Jacqueline— The P'oor; 30, Ali Bey's 
Travels — Foreign Travellers in England; 31, 
Parliamentary Reform ; 32, Porters Travels — 
Rise and Progress of Disaffection; 33, Tonga 
Islands; 35, Lope de Vega; 37, Evelyn on the 
Means of Improving the People ; 41, Copyright 
Act ; 42, Cemeteries ; 43, Monastic Institutions ; 
45, Life of Marlborough; 46, New Churches; 
48, Life of William Huntington, S.S.; 50, Life 
of Cromwell; 52, Dobrizhofer; 53, Camoens; 
65, Gregorie's Religious Sects; 56, Infiilelity; 
^1, Burnet's Own Times; 59, Dwight's Travels; 
62. TTayley— Mrs. Baillie's Lisbon. 

2 T/ie Doctor is a curious and whimsical med- 
ley, very entertaining, abounding in fine de- 
scriptions of character, and pleasant and quaint 
gossip upon odd incidents. 



8 Read an interesting and feeling letter on 
this painful incident, from Mr. Cottle to the 
Rev. John Foster, at page 310 of the Bemi- 
nixcencfis. Read also in the Art Journal, April 
and Maj', 1866, in the series of articles on 
" Memories of the Authors of the Age," by Mr. 
and Mrs. S. C. Hall, one of great interest on 
Southey. 

* The following is Coleridge's estimate of 
Southey: — 

" Southey stands second to no man either as 
an historian or as a bibliographer; and when 
I regard him as a popular essayist, I look in 
vain for any writer who has conveyed so much 
informaticm from so many and such recondite 
sources, with so many just and original reflec- 
tions, in a style so lively and poignant, yet so 
uniformly classical and perspicuous; no one, 
in short, who has combined so much wisdom 
with so much wit, — so much truth and know- 
ledge with so much life and fancy." — Biog. Lit. 

" Southey, among all our living poets," says 
Professor Wilson, "stands aloof, and 'alone in 
his glory.' For he alone of them all has ad- 
ventured to illustrate, in poems of magnitude, 
the different characters, customs, and manners 
of nations. ' Joan of Arc' is an English and 
French story, — ' Thalaba' an Arabian one, — 
' Kehama' ia Indian, — ' Madoc' Welsh and Ame- 
rican, — and -Roderic' Spanish and Moorish; 
nor would it be easy to say (setting aside tlie 
first, which is a very youthful work) in which 
of these noble poems Mr. Soutliey has most 
successfully performed an achievement en- 
tirely beyond the power of any but the highest 
genius." 



SOUTHEY. 317 

And by him sported on the green 
His little grandchild Wilhelmine. 

She saw her brother Peterkin 

Roll something large and round 
Which he beside the rivulet, 

In playing there, had found; 
He came to ask what he had found, 
That was so large, and smooth, and round. 

Old Kaspar took it from the boy, 

Who stood expectant by ; 
And then the old man shook his head, 

And with a natural sigh, 
"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, 
" Who fell in the great victory. 

" I find them in the garden, 

For there's many here about ; 
And often, when I go to plough, 

The ploughshare turns them out] 
For many thousand men," said he, 
" Were siain in that great victory." 

" Now tell us what 'twas all about," 

Young Peterkin he cries : 
While little Wilhelmine looks up. 

With wonder-waiting eyes ; 
" Now tell us all about the war. 
And what they kill'd each other for." 

" It was the English," Kaspar cried, 

" Who put the French to rout ; 
But what they kill'd each other ibr, 

I could not well make out. 
But everybody said," quoth he, 
" That 'twas a famous victory. 

" My father lived at Blenheim then, 

Yon little stream hard by; 
They burnt his dwelling to the ground. 

And he was forced to fly ; 
So with his wife and child he fled, 
Nor had he where to rest his head. 

" With fire and sword, the country round 

Was wasted far and wide ; 
And many a childing mother then, 

And new-born baby, died ; 
But things like that, you know, must be 
At every famous victory. 

" They say it was a shocking sight 

After the field was won ; 
For many thousand bodies here 

Lay rotting in the sun ; 
But things like that, you know, must be 
After a famous victory. 
27* 



318 SOUTHEY. 

" Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won, 
And our good prince, Eugene." 

" Why, 'twas a very wicked thing !" 
Said little Wilhelmine. 

" Nay — nay — my little girl," quoth he, 

" It was a famous victory. 

" And everybody praised the duke, 
Who this great fight did win." 

" And what good came of it at last ?" 
Quoth little Peterkin. 

" Why, that I cannot tell," said he, 

" But 'twas, a famous victory." 



THE niMORTALITY OF LOVE. 

They sin, who tell us love can die 
AVith life all other passions fly, 

All others are but vanity; 
In heaven ambition cannot dwell, 
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell ; 

Earthly these passions of the earth, 

They perish where they have their birth ; 
But love is indestructible ; 

Its holy flame forever burneth. 

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. 
Too oft on earth a troubled guest. 
At times deceived, at times oppressed, 

It here is tried and purified, 
Then hath in heaven its perfect rest : 
It soweth here with toil and care. 
But the harvest-time of love is there. 

Oh, when a mother meets on high 

The babe she lost in infancy, 

Hath she not then, for pains and fears. 
The day of woe, the watoliful night, 

For all her sorrow, all her tears, 
An over-payment of delight ? 



TO A SPIDER. 

Spider ! thou need'st not run in fear about 

To shun my curious eyes ; 
I won't humanely crush thy bowels out, 

Lest thou shouldst eat the flies ; 
Nor will I roast thee with a fierce delight. 
Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see, 
For there is one who might 
One day roast me. 

Thou'rt welcome to a rhymer sore perplex' d, 

The subject of his verse : 
There's many a one who on a better text 

Perhaps might comment worse ; 



SOUTHEY. 319 

Then shrink not, old Freemason, from my view, 
But quietly, like me, spin out the line ; 
Do thou thy work pursue, 
As I will mine. 

Weaver of snares, thou emblemest the ways 

Of Satan, sire of lies ; 
Hell's huge black spider, for mankind he lays 

His toils as thou for flies. 
When Betty's busy eye runs round the room, 
Woe to that nice geometry, if seen ! 
But where is he whose broom 
The earth shall clean ? 

Spider ! of old thy flimsy webs were thought — 

And 'twas a likeness true — 
To emblem laws in which the weak are caught, 

But which the strong break through ; 
And if a victim in thy toils is ta'en, 

Like some poor client is that wretched fly ; 
I'll warrant thee thou'lt drain 
His life-blood dry. 

And is not thy weak work like human schemes 

And care on earth employ'd ? 
Such are young hopes and Love's delightful dreams. 

So easily destroy'd ! 
So does the statesman, while the avengers sleep, 
Self-deem'd secure, his wiles in secret lay ; 
Soon shall destruction sweep 
His work away. 

Thou busy laborer ! one resemblance more 

May yet the verse prolong. 
For, spider, thou art like the poet poor, 

Whom thou hast help'd in song ; 
Both busily our needful food to win, 

We work, as Nature taught, with ceaseless pains, — 
Thy bowels thou dost spin, 
I spin my brains. 



THE COMPLAINTS OF THE POOR. 

*'And wherefore do the poor complain?" 

The rich man ask'd of me ; 
"Come walk abroad with me," I said, 

" And I will answer thee." 

'Twas evening, and the frozen streets 

Were cheerless to behold ; 
And we were wrapp'd and coated well, 

And yet we were a-cold. 

We met an old, bareheaded man, 
His locks were thin and white ; 

I ask'd him what he did abroad 
In that cold winter's night. 



320 SOUTHEY. 

The cold was keen indeed, he said, — 
But at home no fire had he ; 

And therefore he had come abroad 
To ask for charity. 

We met a young, barefooted child, 
And she begg'd loud and bold; 

I ask'd her what she did abroad 
When the wind it blew so cold. 

She said her father was at home. 

And he lay sick a-bed ; 
And therefore was it she was sent 

Abroad to beg for bread. 

We saw a woman sitting down 

Upon a stone to rest ; 
She had a baby at her back. 

And another at her breast. 

I ask'd her why she loiter'd there, 
When the night-wind was so chill ; 

She tnrn'd her head, and bade the child 
That scream'd behind, be still ; 

Then told us that her husband served, 

A soldier, far away ; 
And therefore to her parish she 

Was begging back her way. 

I turn'd me to the rich man then, 

For silently stood he ; 
"You ask'd me why the poor complain ; 

And these have answered thee I" 



THE SCHOLAR. 

My days among the dead are past; 

Around me I behold, 
Where'er these casual eyes are cast, 

The mighty minds of old ; 
My never-failing friends are they. 
With whom I^converse day by day. 

With them I take delight in weal. 

And seek relief in woe ; 
And while I understand and feel 

How much to them I owe, 
My cheeks have often been bedew'd 
With tears of thoughtful gratitude. 

My thoughts are with the dead ; with them 

I live in long-past years. 
Their virtues love, their faults condemn, 

Partake their hopes and fears, 
And from their lessons seek and find 
Instructions with an humble mind. 



SOUTHEY. 321 

My hopes are with the dead ; anon 

My place with them will he, 
And I with them shall travel on 

Through all futurity ; 
Yet leaving here a name, I trust, 
That will not perish in the dust. 



FOR A 2fONVMENT AT OXFORD. 

Here Latimer and Eidley in the flames 
Bore witness to the truth. If thou hast walk'd 
Uprightly through the world, just thoughts of joy 
May fill thy breast in contemplating here 
Congenial virtue. But, if thou hast swerved 
From the straight path of even rectitude, 
Fearful in trying seasons to assert 
The better cause, or to forsake the worse 
Eeluctant, when perchance therein enthrall'd, 
Slave to false shame, oh ! thankfully receive 
The sharp, compunctious motions that this spot 
May wake within thee, and be wise in time, 
And let the future for the past atone. 



THE OLD MAN'S C03IF0RTS, AND HOW HE GAINED THEM. 

"You are old. Father William," the young man cried ; 

'* The few locks which are left you are gray ; 
You are hale. Father William, a hearty old man : 

Now tell me the reason, I pray !" 

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied, 

''I remember'd that youth would fly fast, 
And abused not my health and my vigor at first, 

That I never might need them at last." 

"You are old. Father William," the young man cried, 

"And pleasures with youth pass away. 
And yet you lament not the days that are gone ; 

Now tell me the reason, I pray." 

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied, 

"I remember'd that youth could not last; 
I thought of the future, whatever I did. 

That I never might grieve for the past." 

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, 

"And life must be hastening away; 
You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death ; 

Now tell me the reason, I pray." 

"I am cheerful, young man," Father William replied; 

"Let the cause thy attention engage : 
In the days of my youth I remember'd my God ; 

And He hath not forgotten mv age." 



322 SOUTHEY. 



THE 31 ARCH TO MOSCOW. 

The Emperor Nap he would set off 
On a summer excursion to Moscoav ; 
The fields were green, and the sky was blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! 

Four hundred thousand men and more 

Must go with him to Moscow : 
There were Marshals by the dozen, 

And Dukes by the score ; 
Princes a few, and Kings one or two ; 
While the fields are so green, and the sky so blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
What a pleasant excursion to Moscow I 

There was Junot and Augereau, 

Heigh-ho for Moscow ! 
Dombrowsky and Poniatowsky, 

Marshal Ney, lack-a-day ! 
General Kapp, and the Emperor Nap ; 
Nothing would do, 
While the fields were so green, and the sky so blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
Nothing would do. 
For the whole of this crew. 
But they must be marching to Moscow. 

The Emperor Nap he talk'd so big 
That he frighten'd Mr. Koscoe.^ 
John Bull, he cries, if you'll be wise. 
Ask the Emperor Nap if he will please 
To grant you peace, upon your knees, 
Because he is going to Moscow ! 
He'll make all the Poles come out of their holes. 
And beat the Russians, and eat the Prussians ; 
For the fields are green, and the sky is blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
And he'll certainly march to Moscow ! 

And Counsellor Brougham was all in a fume 
At the thought of the march to Moscow: 
The Russians, he said, they were undone. 
And the great Fee-Faw-Fum 
Would presently come. 
With a hop, step, and jump, unto London. 

For, as for his conquering Russia, 
However some persons mig-lit scofi' it. 
Do it he could, and do it he would, 
And from doing it nothing would come but good. 
And nothing could call him oft" it. 



1 William Roscoe, author of the Life of Lorenzo de Medici, who was a warm friend of the 
French Revolution. 



SOUTHEF. 323 

Mr. Jeffrey said so, who must certainly know, 

For he was the Edinburgh Prophet. ^ 
They all of them knew Mr. Jefirey's Keview, 
Which with Holv Writ ought to be reckon'd : 
It was, through thick and thin, to its party true ; 
Its back was buff; and its sides were blue, 

Morbleu! Parbleu ! 
It served them for Law and for Gospel too.^ 

But the Eussians stoutly they turn'd to 

Upon the road to Moscow. 
Nap had to fight his way all through ; 
They could fight, though they could not parlez-vous ; 
But "the fields were green, and the sky was blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 

And so he got to Moscow. 

He found the place too warm for him, 

For they set fire to Moscow. 
To get therehad cost him much ado, 
And then no better course he knew, 
While the fields were green, and the sky was blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu I 

But to march back again from Moscow. 

The Russians they stuck close to him 

All on the road from Moscow. 
There was Tormazow and Jemalow, 
And all the others that end in ow ; 
Milarodovitch and Jaladovitch, 

And Karatschkowitch, 
And all the others that end in itch ; 
Schamscheft', Souchosanetf, 

And Scliepaleff, 
And all the others that end in eff ; 
Wasiltschikoft", Kostomarofl^ 

And Tchoglokoff, 
And all the others that end in off; 
Rajeffsky, and Novereffsky, 

An^ Rieffsky, 
And all the others that end in effsky ; 
Oscharoffsky and Rostoffsky, 
And all the others that end in offsky ; 
And Platoff he plry'd them oft; 
And Shouvaloff he shovell'd them off, 
And Markoft" he mark'd them off, 
And Krosnoff he cross' d them off, 
And Tuchkoff he touch'd them off, 
And Boroskoff he bored them oft', 
And Kutousoff he cut them off'. 
And Parenzoff he pared them off. 
And Worronzoff he worried them off, 
And Doctoroff he doctor' d them off. 



I This is a side cut at the " Ediuburgh," iu return for some of its caustic criticisms. 



324 SOUTHEY. 



And, last of all, an Admiral came, 

A terrible man with a terrible name, 

A name which you all know by sight very well. 

But which no one can speak, and no one can spell. 

They stuck close to Nap with all their might ; 

They were on the left and on the right. 

Behind and before, and by day and by night ; 

He would rather parlez-vous than fight ; 

But he look'd white, and he look'd blue, 

Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
When parlez-vous no more would do, 
For they remember' d Moscow. 

And then came on the frost and snow, 

All on the road from Moscow. 
The wind and the Aveather he found, in that hour, 
Cared nothing for him, nor for all liis power ; 
For him who, while Europe crouch'd under his rod. 
Put his trust in his Fortune, and not in his God. 
Worse and worse every day the elements grew, 
The fields were so white, and the sky so blue, 
Sacrebleu ! Ventrebleu ! 

What a horrible journey from Moscow 1 

What then thought the Emperor Nap 

Upon the road from Moscow ? 
Why, I ween he thought it small delight 
To fight all day, and to freeze all night ; 
And he was besides in a very great fright. 
For a whole skin he liked to be in ; 
And so, not knowing what else to do. 
When the fields were so white, and the sky so blue, 

Morbleu! Parbleu I 
He stole away — I tell you true — 

Upon the road from Moscow. 
'Tis myself, quoth he, I nuist mind most; 
So the Devil may take the hindmost. 

Too cold upon the road was he ; 

Too hot had he been at Moscow. 
But colder and hotter he may be. 
For the grave is colder than Moscovy ; 
And a place there is to be kept in view. 
Where the fire is red, and the brimstone blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 

Which he must go to, 

If the Pope say true, 
If he does not in time look about him ; 

Where his namesake almost 

He may have for his Host ; 
He has reckon'd t»o long without him ; 
If that Host get him in Purgatory, 
He won't leave him there alone with his glory: 
But there he must stay for a very long day. 
For from thence there is no stealing away. 

As there was on the road from Moscow. 



SOUTHEY. 325 



THE TRUE 311 SSI ON OF ENGLAND. 



Train up thy children, England, in the ways 
Of righteousness, and feed them with the bread 
Of wholesome doctrine. Send thy swarms abroad ! 
Send forth thy humanizing arts, 

Thy stirring enterprise. 
Thy liberal polity, thy gospel light ! 
Illume the dark idolater, 
Reclaim the savage ! O thou Ocean Queen ! 
Be these thy toils when thou hast laid 
The thunderbolt aside: 
He who hath bless' d thine arms 
Will bless thee in these holy works of Peace ! 
Father! thy kingdom come, and as in heaven 
Thy will be done on earth. 

As a prose writer, scarcely any other author of the nineteenth century has 
written upon more, or more varied, subjects; and all his writings are marked 
by an easy, flowing style, extensive reading, and a vein of poetical feeling that 
runs through the whole, whether critical, historical, or political. Besides his 
numerous contributions to the Quarterly Review, mentioned in the note on 
page 316, he has published the following : — 

History of Brazil, three volumes ; History of the Peninsular War, two volumes; 
Book of the Church; Life of Lord Nelson; Letters from England, by Don Manuel 
Alvarez Espriella, three volumes, — a series of observations on English manners 
and the prospects of England; Letters from Spain and Portugal, two volumes; 
Omniana, a collection of critical remarks and curious quotations; The Doctor, 
five volumes, — "a work partly fictitious, but abounding in admirable de- 
scription and quaint fanciful delineation of character;" Progress and Pros- 
pects of Society, two volumes; Essays, Moral, and Political, two volumes; Lives 
of Uneducated Poets; Life of Cowper, and an edition of his works, in fifteen 
volumes. These, and various minor prose works, are proofs alike of his won- 
derful, untiring industry, and of the easy and admirable English style of 
which he was so consummate a master. 

DEATH OF LORD NELSON. 

It had been part of Nelson's prayer, that the British fleet 
might be distinguished by humanity in the victory which he ex- 
pected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave orders to 
cease firing on the Redoubtable, supposing that she had struck, 
because her guns were silent ; for, as she carried no flag, there 
was no means of instantly ascertaining the fact. From this ship, 
which he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball 
fired from her mizen-top, which, in the then situation of the two 
vessels, was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the 
deck where he was standing, struck the epaulette on his left 
shoulder, about a quarter after one, just in the heat of action. 

28 



826 SOUTHEY. 

He fell upon his face, on the spot which was covered with his 
poor secretary's blood. Hardy, who was a few steps from him, 
turning round, saw three men raising him up. " They have done 
for me at last, Hardy," said he. " I hope not," cried Hardy. 
"Yes!" he replied; "my back-bone is shot through." Yet even 
now, not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed, 
as they were carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller-ropes, 
which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered 
that new ones should be rove immediately : then, that he might 
not be seen by the crew, he took out his handkerchief, and 
covered his face and his stars. Had he but concealed these 
badges of honor from the enemy, England, perhaps, would not 
have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of the battle of 
Trafalgar. The cockpit was crowded with wounded and dying 
men, over whose bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed, 
and laid upon a pallet in the midshipmen's berth. It was soon 
perceived, upon examination, that the wound was mortal. This, 
however, was concealed from all except Captain Hardy, the 
chaplain, and the medical attendants. He himself being certain, 
from the sensation in his back, and the gush of blood he felt mo- 
mently within his breast, that no human care could avail him, 
insisted that the surgeon should leave him and attend to those 
to whom he might be useful; "for," said he, "you can do nothing 
for me." All that could be done was to fan him with paper, and 
frequently to give him lemonade to alleviate his intense thirst. 
He was in great pain, and expressed much anxiety for the event 
of the action, which now began to declare itself. As often as a 
ship struck, the crew of the Victory hurraed ; and at every 
hurra, a visible expression of joy gleamed in the eyes and 
marked the countenance of the dying hero. But he became 
impatient to see Hardy ; and as that officer, though often sent 
for, could not leave the deck, Nelson feared that some fatal cause 
prevented him, and repeatedly cried, " Will no one bring Hardy 
to me? he must be killed! he is surely dead!" An hour and ten 
minutes elapsed from the time when Kelson received his Avound, 
before Hardy could come to him. They shook hands in silence; 
Hardy in vain struggling to suppress the feelings of that most 
painful aud yet sublimest moment. "Well, Hardy," said Nelson, 
"how goes the day with us?" "Very well," replied Hardy; 
"ten ships have struck, but five of the van have tacked, and 
show an intention to bear down upon the Victory. I have called 
two or three of our fresh ships round, and have no doubt of giving 
them a drubbing." " I hope," said Nelson, " none of our ships 
have struck." Hardy answered, " there was no fear of that." 
Then, and not till then, Nelson spoke of himself. " I am a dead 
man, Hardy," said he; " I am going fast: it will be all over with 
me soon. Come nearer to me." * * * Hardy then, once more, 



SOUTHEY, 327 

shook hands with him, and, with a heart almost bursting, has- 
tened upon deck. * * * His articulation now became difficult; 
but he was distinctly heard to say, " Thank God, I have done 
my duty!" These words he repeatedly pronounced; and they 
were the last words which he uttered. He expired at thirty 
minutes after four, — three hours and a quarter after he had re- 
ceived his Avound. 

The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more 
than a public calamity: men started at the intelligence, and 
turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. 
An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of 
our hopes, was suddenly taken from us ; and it seemed as if we 
had never till then known how deeply we loved and reverenced 
him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero — the 
greatest of our own and of all former times — was scarcely taken 
into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he per- 
formed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Tra- 
falgar, was considered at an end. The fleets of the enemy were 
not merely defeated, but destroyed; new navies must be built, 
and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility 
of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It 
was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magni- 
tude of our loss that we mourned for him : the general sorrow 
was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that 
funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous 
rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him Avhom 
the king, the legislature, and the nation would have alike delighted 
to honor; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose pre- 
sence in every village through which he might have passed 
would have wakened the church-bells, have given schoolboys a 
holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, 
and " old men from the chimney-corner" to look upon Nelson ere 
they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, 
with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for 
such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson's 
surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any additior 
from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the 
seas ; and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all tho 
maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly ap-» 
peared to add to our security or strength ; for, while Nelson was 
living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt 
ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in ex- 
istence. 

There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon open- 
ing his body, that in the course of nature he might have at- 
tained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet he cannot be 
said to have fallen jDrematurely whose work was done; nor ought 



328 SOUTHEY. 

he to be lamented, who died so full of honors and at the height] 
of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of the mar- 
tyr; the most awful, that of the martyred patriot; the most' 
splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory. 



ETYMOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES— THE TEN TRIBES. 

That the lost ten tribes of Israel may be found in London, is a 
discovery which any person may suppose he has made when he 
walks for the first time from the city to Wapping.\ That the 
tribes of Judah and Benjamin flourish there is known to all man- 
kind ; and from them have sprung the Scripites, and the Om- 
niumites, and the Threepercentites. 

But it is not so well known that many other tribes noticed in 
the Old Testament are to be found in this island of Great 
Britain. 

There are the Hittites, who excel in one branch of gymnastics ; 
and there are the Amorites, who are to be found in town and 
country ; and there are the Gadites, who frequent watering-places 
and take picturesque tours. 

Among the Gadites I shall have some of my best readers, who, 
being in good humor with themselves and wuth every thing else, 
except on a rainy day, will even then be in good humor with me. 
There will be the Amorites in their company ; and among the 
Amorites, too, there will be some who, in the overflowing of their 
love, will have some liking to spare for the doctor and his faith- 
ful memorialist. 

The poets — those especially who deal in erotics, lyrics, senti- 
mentals, or sonnets — are the Ah-oh-ites. The gentlemen who 
speculate in chapels are tlie Puhites. 

The chief seat of the Simeonites is at Cambridge ; but they are 
spread over the land. So are the Man-ass-ites, of whom the 
finest specimens are to be seen in St. James's Street, at the 
fashionable time of day for exhibiting the dress and the person 
upon the pavement. 

The freemasons are of the family of the Jachinites. The female 
Hf^ggites are to be seen, in low life wheeling barrows, and in high 
life seated at card-tables. 

The Shuhamites are the cordwainers. The Teamanites attend 
the sales of the East India Company. Sir James Mackintosh 
and Sir James Scarlett and Sir James Graham belong to the 
Jim-nites. 

Who are the Gazathites, if the people of London are not, where 
any thing is to be seen ? All of them are the Gettites when they 



1 A hamlet on the north side of the Thames, a little below the Tower, chiefly inhabited by 
seafaring men and tradesmen. 



FOSTER. 329 

can ; all would be Havites if they could. The journalists should 
be Geshurites, if they answered to their profession : instead of 
this, they generally turn out to be Geshuwrongs. 

There are, however, three tribes in England, not named in the 
Old Testament, who considerably outnumber all the rest. These 
are the High Vulgarites, who are the children of Rahank and 
Phashan ; the Middle Vulgarites, who are the children of Mam- 
mon and Terade ; and the Low Vulgarites, who are the children 
of Tahag, Rahag, and Bohob-tay-il. 

With the Low Vulgarites I have no concern ; but with the 
other two tribes, much. Well it is that some of those who are 
fruges consumer e natl^ think it proper that they should consume 
books also ; if they did not, what a miserable creature wouldst 
thou be, Henry Colburn, who art their bookseller! I myself 
have that kind of respect for the consumers which we ought to 
feel for every thing useful. If not the salt of the earth, they are 
its manure, without which it could not produce so abundantly. 

THE CHIEF OBJECT OF LIFE. 

The object of a good and wise man in this transitory state of 
existence should be to fit himself for a better, by controlling the 
unworthy propensities of his nature and improving all its better 
aspirations ; to do his duty first to his family, then to his neigh- 
bors, lastly to his country and his kind ; to promote the welfare 
and happiness of those who are in any degree dependent upon 
him, or whom he has the means of assisting, and never wantonly 
to injure the meanest thing that lives ; to encourage, as far as 
he may have the power, whatever is useful and ornamental in 
society, whatever tends to refine and elevate humanity ; to store 
his mind with such knowledge as it is fitted to receive and he is 
able to attain ; and so to employ the talents committed to his 
charge, that when the account is required he may hope to have 
his stewardship approved. 



JOHN FOSTER, 1770-1843. 

John Foster, the author of many well-known Christian essays, was born in 
Yorkshire, in 1770, and was educated in the Baptist College at Bristol. After 
completing his course of theological studies, he was settled as a clergyman in 
several different places, the last of which was Downend, near Bristol ; but the 
character of his mind being such as fitted him for a life of meditation and 



1 " Born to consume fruits." 
28* 



330 



FOSTER. 



study rather than for the regular exercise of the pastoral office, he retired from 
public engagements, and spent the remainder of his time in literary pursuits 
in Stapleton, near Bristol, where he resided^-preaching only occasionally — 
until the time of his death, which took place on the 15th of October, IS-AS. 

In 1805 he first published his Essays, in a Series of Letters to a Friend, which 
took rank, immediately, as among the most original and valuable works of the 
day. These essays were four in number, — namely. On a Man's writing Memoirs 
of Himself ; On Decision of Character; On the Application of the Epithet Romantic; 
and On some of dhe Causes hy xohich Evangelical Religion has been rendered less 
Acceptable to Persons of Cultivated Taste. These essays passed through many 
editions, and are "models of vigorous thought and expression, vmiting meta- 
physical nicety and acuteness with practical sagacity and common sense." 
He also wrote a volume on the Evils of Popular Ignorance; and his contribu- 
tions to the Eclectic have been published in two volumes, under the title, Con- 
iributions. Biographical, Literaiy, and Philosophical, *t,o the Eclectic Review.^ 

The following notice of Mr. Foster appeared in the Bristol Mirror a short 
time after his death : — " Few writers in the whole range of literature possess 
in an equal degree the power to touch and set in motion the springs of serious 
reflection. A closer inspection of his mind convinced those who were admitted 
to the rare privilege of personal intercourse with him, that those really mas- 
terly productions, though much elaborated, Avere not exhausting efforts, but 
rather natural specimens of the thoughts and sentiments which habitually 
dAvelt within him. They testify that, with a mind profoundly meditative, 
deeply imbued with ' the powers of the world to come,' and ardently, even to 
impatience, desirous of the advancement of mankind in freedom, truth, and 
piety, he united vast stores of knowledge on a great variety of subjects, and an 
exquisite perception and appreciation of whatever was sublime or beautiful, 
whether in thought, nature, or art. His piety toward God, and charity 
toward men, were as deep as they were unostentatious. He was an unaf- 
fectedly great and good man."^ 

CHANGES FROM YOUTH TO AGE. 

If a reflective aged man were to find at the bottom of an old 
chest — where it had lain forgotten fifty years — a record which he 
had written of himself when he was young, simply and vividly 
describing his whole heart and pursuits, and reciting, verhatimy 
many passages of the language which he sincerely uttered, would 
he not read it with more wonder than almost every other writing 
could at his age inspire ? He would half lose the assurance of 
his identity, under the impression of this immense dissimilarity. 



1 Read Life and Correitpondence of John Fos- 
ter, by J. E. Ryland, with notices of him as a 
preacher, by Jolin Sheppard, 2 volumes. 

2 His celebrated friend, the late Robert 
Hall, bestowed niion him the following just 
and beautiful eulogiiim : — "He paints meta- 
physics, and has the happy art of arraying 
what in other hands would appear cold and 
comfortless abstractions in the warmest colqrs 
of fancy. Without quitting his argument in 
pursuit of ornament or imagery, his imagina- 



tion becomes the perfect handmaid of his rea- 
son, ready at every moment to spread her 
canvas and present her pencil. But what 
affords as the deepest satisfaction is to find 
such talents enlisted on the side of true Chris- 
tianity; nor can we forbear indulging a bene- 
volent triumph on the accession to the cause 
of evangelical- piety of powers which its most 
4is|;inguigtied opponents would be prouJ to 
possess." Head an article on his writings in 
the North J^r^}sji Review, v. 281. 



FOSTER. 331 

It would seem as if it must be the tale of the juvenile days of 
some ancestor, with whom he had no connection but that of name. 
He would feel the young man thus introduced to him separated 
by so wide a distance of character as to render all congenial 
sociality impossible. At every sentence he would be tempted to 
repeat, " Foolish youth, I have no sympathy with your feelings ; 
I can hold no converse with your understanding." Thus, you 
see that in the course of a long life a man may be several moral 
persons, so various from one another that, if you could find a 
real individual that should nearly exemplify the character in one 
of these stages, and another that should exemplify it in the next, 
and so on to the last, and then bring these several persons together 
into one society, which would thus be a representation of the suc- 
cessive states of one man, they would feel themselves a most 
heterogeneous party, would oppose and probably despise one 
another, and soon after separate, not caring if they were never 
to meet again. If the dissimilarity in mind were as great as in 
person, there would in both respects be a most striking contrast 
between the extremes at least, between the youth of seventeen 
and the sage of seventy. The one of these contrasts an old man 
might contemplate if he had a true portrait for which he sat in 
the bloom of his life, and should hold it beside a mirror in Avhich 
he looks at his present countenance; and the other would be 
powerfully felt if he had such a genuine and detailed memoir as 
I have supposed. Might it not be worth while for a self-observant 
person, in early life, to preserve, for the inspection of the old 
man, if he should live so long, such a mental likeness of the 
young one ? If it be not drawn near the time, it can never be 
drawn with sufficient accuracy. 

ADVANTAGES OF DECISION OF CHARACTER. 

One signal advantage possessed by a mind of this character is, 
that its passions are not wasted. The whole amount of passion 
of which any mind, with important transactions before it, is 
capable, is not more than enough to supply interest and energy 
to its practical exertions ; and, therefore, as little as possible of 
this sacred fire should be expended in a way that does not 
augment the force of action. But nothing can less contribute to 
vigor of effort than protracted anxious fluctuation, intermixed 
with resolutions decided and revoked, while yet nothing causes a 
greater expense of feeling. The heart is fretted and exhausted 
by being subjected to an alternation of contrary excitements, 
with the ultimate mortifying consciousness of their contributing 
to no end. 

The long-wavering deliberation, whether to perform some bold 
action of difficult virtue, has often cost more to feeling than the 



332 FOSTER. 

action itself, or a series of such actions, would have cost ; with 
the great disadvantage, too, of being i-elieved by none of that 
invigoration which, to the man in action, would have sprung 
from the spirit of the action itself, and have renovated the ardor 
which it was expending. A person of decisive character, by con- 
suming as little passion as possible in dubious musings and abor- 
tive resolutions, can secure its utmost value and use, by throwing 
it all into effective operation. 

Another advantage of this character is, that it exempts from a 
great deal of interference and persecution, to which an irresolute 
man is subjected. Weakness, in every form, tempts arrogance ; 
and a man may be allowed to wish for a kind of character with 
which stupidity and impertinence may not make so free. When 
a firm, decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how the 
space clears around a man, and leaves him room and freedom. 
The disposition to interrogate, dictate, or banter, preserves a re- 
spectful and politic distance, judging it not unwise to keep the 
peace with a person of so much energy. A conviction that he 
understands and that he wills with extraordinary force, silences 
the conceit that intended to perplex or instruct him, and intimi- 
dates the malice that was disposed to attack him. There is a 
feeling, as in respect to fate, that the decrees of so inflexible a 
spirit must be right, or that, at least, they will be accomplished. 

The last resource of this character is hard, inflexible perti- 
nacity, on which it may be allowed to rest its strength, after find- 
ing it can be effectual in none of its milder forms. I remember 
admiring an instance of this kind, in a firm, sagacious, and very 
estimable old man, whom I well knew, and who is now dead. 
Being on a jury, in a trial of life and death, he was completely 
satisfied of the innocence of the prisoner ; the other eleven were 
of the opposite opinion. But he was resolved the man should 
not be condemned, and, as the first effort for preventing it, very 
properly made application to the minds of his associates, spend- 
ing several hours in laboring to convince them. But he found 
he made no impression, while he was exhausting the strength 
which was to be reserved for another mode of operation. He 
then calmly told them it should now be a trial who could endure 
confinement and famine the longest, and that they might be quite 
assured he would sooner die than release them at the expense of 
the prisoner's life. In this situation they spent about twenty- 
four hours, when, at length, all acceded to his verdict of acquittal. 

CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN. 

His predominant passion appears to have been a love of the 
useful. The useful was to him the summum honum, the supreme 



FOSTER. 333 

fair, the sublime and beautiful, which it may not perhaps be ex- 
travagant to believe he was in quest of every week for half a 
century, in whatever place, or study, or practical undertaking. 
No department was too plain or humble for him to occupy him- 
self in for this purpose ; and in affairs of the most ambitious 
order this was still systematically his object. Whether in directing 
the constructing of chimneys or of constitutions, lecturing on the 
saving of candles or on the economy of national revenues, he was 
still intent on the same end, the question always being how to 
obtain the most of solid tangible advantage by the plainest and 
easiest means. There has rarely been a mortal, of high intelli- 
gence and flattering fame, on whom the pomps of life were so 
powerless. On him were completely thrown away the oratorical 
and poetical heroics about glory, of which heroics it was enough 
that he easily perceived the intention or effect to be, to explode 
all sober truth and substantial good, and to impel men, at the 
very best of the matter, through some career of vanity, but 
commonly through mischief, slaughter, and devastation, in mad 
pursuit of what amounts at last, if attained, to some certain 
quantity of noise, and empty show, and intoxicated transient 
elation. He was so far an admirable spirit for acting the Mentor 
to a young republic. It will not be his fault if the citizens of 
America shall ever become so servile to European example as to 
think a multitude of supernumerary places, enormous salaries, 
and a factitious economy of society, a necessary security or deco- 
ration of that political liberty which they enjoy in pre-eminence 
above every nation on earth. In these letters of their patriarch 
and philosopher, they will be amply warned, by repeated and 
emphatical representations, of the desperate mischief of a politi- 
cal system in which the public resources shall be expended in a 
way to give the government both the interest and the means to 
corrupt the people. 

''WHERE WILL YOU LEAVE YOUR GLORY r 

Men must leave their glory. If they would but think, as they 
look upon the things that are swelling their pride, " This, and 
this, is what I am to ieave : it has no one relation to me so posi- 
tive as that I shall leave it. I feel my being standing off from 
it — in separation, as preparing to leave it. So near as I now am 
to it, I may in a moment come to behold it as at an immense dis- 
tance. The most certain of all things is, that the moment will 
be when I shall find that I have left it." And w^here will they 
(the man of material wealth, the possessor of earthly honors, the 
man who glories in his intellectual power) leave it ? where ? In 
their funeral pomps ? in the dimensions and decorations of their 
sepulchres ? in their names, which, when called, there is no living 



334 



CAMPBELL. 



person to answer to ? Contrast with all these forms of folly, the 
predominant aim of a Christian, which is " glory" still ; but a 
glory which he will not have to leave, — a glory accumulating for 
him in the world whither he is going, to which he is progressively 
transmitting, if we may so speak, the effects of all his exertions 
here, for God, for the Redeemer, for the good of men, for the 
future welfare of his soul, which *he commits, together with his 
spirit, to Christ, and can say, "I know that he is able to keep 
that which I have committed to him against that day." 



THOMAS CAMPBELL, 1777-18 U- 

Come forth, Campbell ! give thy talents scope : 
Who dares aspire 11' thou must cease to hope? 

Byrox. 

TnoifAS Campbell, the celebrated British poet, was the son of a merchant in 
Glasgow, and was born in that city on the 27th of July, 1777. After finishing 
his academical course at the University of Glasgow, where he gave much pro- 
mise of future fame, he accepted the situation of a tutor in a family in Argyle- 
shire. After remaining here a short time, he went to Edinburgh in the winter 
of 1798, with the first rough draft of the Pleasures of Hope in his pocket, and 
showed it to Dugald Stewart and Dr. Robert Anderson, who praised it Avarmly 
and prophesied its success. It was dedicated to Dr. Anderson, and published in 
April, 1799; but the author was so unwise as to sell the copyright for the small 
Bum of sixty pounds to Mundell, the bookseller.^ 

"With "money in his purse," Campbell had an earnest desire to visit Ger- 
many. He did so, and was gone about thirteen months. On his return to 
England he made arrangements for the publication of a complete edition of his 
poems in a quarto form, which appeared in London in 1803. On the 11th of 
October the same year, he married Miss Matilda Sinclair, of Edinburgh, and 
fixed his residence in Sydenham, in Kent, working for his bread by con- 
tributing to magazines, newspapers, <fec. In 1805 he received a pension of two 
hundred pounds a year, which came very opportunely to save him from great 
pecuniary embarrassment. In 1809 he added another wreath to his fame, by 
the publication of Gertrude of Wyoming, in which the poverty of the story 
is concealed by the elegance of the descriptive passages, and the sweetness 
and delicacy of the poetical language, which charms us with its grace and 
melody. 



1 " The copyright of my Pleasures of Hope" 
he writes, " worth an annuity of two hundred 
pounds for life, w<as sold out-and-out for sixty 
pounds." " But," he adds, " for two or three 
years the publishers gave me fifty pounds on 
every edition." This was better than nothing; 
but what was it, compared with what the pub- 
lisher made? No wonder he ever after felt so 
sore on the subject, and that in 1805 he thus 
wrote to Scott : — " They are the greatest ravens 
on earth with whom we have to deal, — liberal 
enough as booksellei's, — but still, you know, 



ravens, croakers, suckers of innocent blood and 
living men's brains." Again, to Alison, in 1811 : 
— "Perhaps in my feelings towards the Gallic 
Usurper there may be something personal ; for 
I must confess that, ever since he shot the 
bookseller in Germany, I have had a warm 
side for him. It was sacrificing an offering by 
the hand of Genius to the Manes of the victims 
immolated by the trade ; and I only wish we had 
Nap here for a short time, to cut out a few of 
our own cormorants." 



CAMPBELL. 



335 



His next great work was the Specimens of the British Poets, in seven octavo 
volumes, published in 1819. The Preliminary Essay to this work is a charm- 
ing piece of prose, and the little prefatory notices abound in delightful cri- 
ticism.i The next year he entered upon the editorship of the New Monthly 
Magazine. He contributed but little, however, to this periodical, though he 
drew around him a band of clever writers, who made it very popular. In 
1824 he put forth another poem, — a dramatic tale, — TJieodric, — in which the 
public were sadly disappointed. After this he wrote no poem of any consider- 
able length.2 It is not by his longer poems, however, that Campbell will be 
best remembered, but by his shorter pieces of such exquisite finish and feel- 
ing, such as The Soldier's Dream, &c., and especially by those noble martial 
lyrics or war-songs, which, as has been well said, "form the richest offering 
ever made by poetry at the shrine of patriotism." 

In 1827 he was elected Lord Eector of his own mother-University at Glas- 
gow by the free and unanimous choice of the students.^ On the 9th of May 
the next year, he lost his amiable and excellent wife, which was a severe blow 
to him. In 1830 he resigned the editorship of the New Monthly, and, lending 
his name to another publisher, started the Meti'opolitan Magazine, in which he 
was afterwards aided by his poetical friend Thomas Moore.* In 1834 he pub- 
lished, in two octavo volumes, the Life of Mrs. Siddons, which added but little 
to his reputation. His subsequent publications were a Life of Shakspeare, The 
Life and Times of Petrarch, Frederick the Great and his Court and Times, and 
some smaller poems. He left London for Boulogne, on account of his health, 
in 1843, and he resided in that city, with his niece as his companion, until 
his death, which took place on the 15th of June, 1844. On the 3d of the next 
month his remains were deposited in the " Poets' Corner" in Westminster Ab- 
bey, over against the monument to Shakspeare. He had two sons ; the younger 
died at an early age,— while the elder, a helpless imbecile from his birth, sur- 
vived the father.5 

I know well that in these days (1866) it is fashionable to admire the poets 
of the present and to disparage those of the preceding generation: yet I must 
express my own convictions, and say that no poet of the nineteenth century 



1 But the fault of the work is, it does not 
give the best specimens of the various authors; 
and it is for this reason, I presume, that an- 
other edition was not called lor till 1S41, when 
it was reprinted in one large octavo volume. 
The ground had been trodden by others before, 
who made the best selections from their 
authors. Campbell wished not to tread in 
their track, and hence the failure of the T)ook. 
As was well said by a writer in Fraser's Maga- 
zine for November, 1844, " No one will go to a 
book for specimens of a poet in his second- 
best manner or his third-rate mood. We want 
the cream of a poet, not the skimmed milk of 
his genius." 

2 " What a pity it is," said Sir Walter Scott 
to Washington Irving, " that Campbell does not 
write more and oftener, and give full sweep to 
his genius! He has wings that would bear 
him to the skies, and he does, now and then, 
spread them grandly, but folds them up again 
and resumes his perch, as if he was afraid to 
launch away. The fact is, Campbell is, in a 
manner, a bugbear to himself: the brightness 
of bis early success is a detriment to all his 



after-efforts. He is afraid of the shadow that 
his oivn fame casts before him." 

3 " It was deep snow," writes Allan Cun- 
ningham, "when he reached the college-green; 
the students were drawn up in parties, pelting 
one another; the poet ran into the ranks, 
threw several snow-balls with unerring aim, 
then, summoning the scholars around him in 
the hall, delivered a speech replete with philo- 
sophy and eloquence. It is needless to say 
how this was welcomed." 

4 The after-history of the Magazine is well 
known; the two poets retired, and Marryat, 
with his Peter Simple, gave it an extent of 
reputation it had not before. 

6 Read an Essay on the Genius and Character 
of Campbell, by George Gilfillan; an article in 
the Nco-th British Jieview, x. ^59; another in 
the Londrm. Qiiarterl7/,lxxx\.Z2: also in the 
Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1846, Decem- 
ber, 1848, and February, 1849; also the Life 
and Letters of Thomas Campbell, by William 
Beattie, M.D.; and an excellent review of this 
work in the Gentleman's Magazine for Febru- 
ary, 1849. 



336 



CAMPBELL, 



has, in my estimation, a higher rank than Thomas Campbell; no one is more 
generally read and admired, and no one will be longer remembered. There is 
no mysticism about him: all is clear as well as ennobling. His exquisite 
harmony of versification, his occasional sublimity, his enthusiasm, his pathetic 
tenderness, his richness of natural description, together with his elevation and 
purity of moral sentiment, all combine to make him a classic secure of his im- 
mortality, — standing upon the same shelf with Goldsmith, Thomson, and Gray.i 



THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD. 

Lo ! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps, 
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ; 
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies. 
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes, 
And weaves a song of melancholy joy: 
" Sleep, image of thy father ; sleep, my boy ; 
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine; 
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine; 
Bright as his manly sire the son sball be 
In form and soul ; but, ah ! more blest than he ! 
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love at last. 
Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past, — 
With many a smile my solitude repay. 
And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away. 

" And say, when summon'd from the world and tliee, 
I lay my head beneath the willow-tree. 
Wilt thou, sweet mourner, at my stone appear, 
And soothe my parted spirit lingering near? 
Oh, wilt tliou come at evening hour to shed 
The tears of Memory o'er my narrow bed — 
With aching temples on thy hand reclined, 
Muse on the last farewell I leave behind. 
Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low. 
And think on all my love, and all my woe?" 

So speaks affection, ere the infant eye 
Can look regard, or brighten in reply : 
But when the cherub lip hath learnt to claim 
A mother's ear by that endearing name; 
Soon as the playful innocent can prove 
A tear of pity, or a smile of love, 
Or cons his murmuring task beneath her care. 
Or lisps with holy look his evening prayer. 



1 Since writing the above, I have been happy 
to find my high estimate of Campbell as a 
poet confirmed by so sound and tasteful a 
critic as Mr. Moir,— the A (Delta) of Black- 
wood. He says, "I do not think I overrate 
the merits of the Pleasures of Ho2ye, whether 
taking it in its parts or as a whole, in pre- 
ferring it to any didactic poem of equal length 
in the English language. No poet, at such an 
age, ever produced such an exquisite specimen 
of poetical mastery, — that is, of fine concep- 
tion and of high art combined. Sentiments 
tender, energetic, impassioned, eloquent, and 



majestic, are conveyed to the reader in the 
tones of a music forever varied, — sinking or 
swelling like the harmonies of an ^olian lyre, 
— yet ever delightful; and these are illus- 
trated by pictures from romance, history, or 
domestic life, replete with power and beauty. 
It is like a long fit of inspiration, — a check- 
ered melody of transcendent excellence, pass- 
age after passage presenting only an ever- 
varying and varied tissue of whatever is beau- 
tiful and sublime in the soul of man and the 
aspects of nature." 



CAMPBELL. 337 

Or gazing, mutely pensive, sits to hear 
The mournful ballad warbled in h% ear; 
How fondly looks admiring Hope the while, 
At every artless tear, and every smile ! 
How glows the joyous parent to descry 
A guileless bosom, true to sympathy 1 

Pleasures of Hope, 

THE ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 

Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time. 
And rule the spacious world from clime to clime; 
Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore, 
Trace every wave, and culture every shore. 
On Erie's banks, where tigers steal along. 
And the dread Indian chants a dismal song, 
Where human fiends on midnight errands walk, 
And bathe in brains the murderous tomahawk. 
There shall the flocks on thymy pasture stray. 
And shepherds dance at Summer's opening day. 
Each wandering genius of the lonely glen 
Shall start to view the glittering haunts of men, 
And silent watch, on woodland heights around, 
The village curfew as it tolls profound. 

In Libyan groves, where damned rites are done, 
That bathe the rocks in blood, and veil the sun. 
Truth shall arrest the murderous arm profane, 
Wild Obi flies, — the vail is rent in twain. 

Where barbarous hordes on Scythian mountains roam, 
Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet shall find a home ; 
Where'er degraded Nature bleeds and pines, 
From Guinea's coast to Sibir's dreary mines, 
Truth shall pervade the unfathom'd darkness there. 
And light the dreadful features of despair : 
Hark ! the stern captive spurns his heavy load. 
And asks the image back that Heaven bestow'd I 
Fierce in his eye the fire of valor burns. 
And, as the slave departs, the man returns. 

The same. 

MAN MADE TO BE FREE. 

And say, supernal Powers ! who deeply scan 
Heaven's dark decrees, unfathom'd yet by man. 
When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame. 
That embryo spirit, yet without a name, — 
That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands 
Shall burst the Libyan's adamantine bands ? 
Who, sternly marking on his native soil 
The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil. 
Shall bid each righteous heart exult, to see 
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free ! 

Yet, yet, degraded men ! the expected day, 
That breaks your bitter cup, is far away ! 
29 



CAMPBELL. 

Trade, wealth, and fashion ask you still to bleed, 
And holy men^ive Scripture for the deed ; 
Scourged, and oebased, no Briton stoops to save 
A wretch^ a coward ; yes, because a slave !* 

Eternal Nature ! when thy giant hand 
Had heaved the floods, and fix'd the trembling land, 
When life sprang startling at thy plastic call, 
Endless her forms, and man the lord of all, — 
Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee 
To wear eternal chains and bow the knee ? 
Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil, 
Yoked with the brutes, and fetter'd to the soil ; 
Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold ? 
No ! — Nature stamp'd us in a heavenly mould I 
She bade no wretch his thankless labor urge, 
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge; 
No homeless Libyan, on the stormy deep, 
To call upon his country's name, and weep ! 

The same. 

HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

Unfading Hope ! when life's last embers bum, 
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return ! 
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour ! 
Oh, then, thy kingdom comes ! Immortal Power ! 
What though each spark of earth-bom rapture fly 
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye ! 
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey 
The morning dream of life's eternal day, — 
Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin, 
And all the phoenix spirit bums within I 

Oh, deep enchanting prelude to repose, 
The dawn of bliss, the tAviliglit of our woes ! 
Yet half I hear the panting spirit sigh, 
It is a dread and awful thing to die ! 
Mysterious worlds, untravell'd by the sun, 
Where Time's far wandering tide has never run, 
From your unfathom'd shades, and viewless spheres, 
A warning comes, unheard by other ears. 
'Tis Heaven's commanding trumpet, long and loud. 
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud I 
While Nature hears, with terror-mingled trust. 
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust ; 
And, like the trembling Hebrew, when he trod 
The roaring waves, and call'd upon his God, 



1 " Mr. Campbell has earned the title of the 
Bard of Liberty as well as of Hope. Freedom 
is his farorite watchword, and to ban a tyrant 
is his dear delight. God forbid it shoiild ever 
be otherwise with a British poet!" — Quarterly 
Mevieiv, Ivii. 359. 

" It is a proud thing indeed for England, for 
poetry, and for mankind, that all the illus- 



trious poets of the present day— Byron, Moore, 
Rogers, Campbell — are distinguished by their 
zeal for freedom; while those who have de- 
serted that manly and holy cause have from 
that hour felt their inspiration withdrawn, 
their harp -strings broken, and the fire 
quenched in their censers," — Edinburgh Be- 
view, xli. 281. 



CAMPBELL. 339 

With mortal terrors clouds immortal bliss, 
And shrieks and hovers o'er the dark abyss ! 

Daughter of Faith ! awake, arise, illume 
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb ; 
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll 
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul I 
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of Dismay, 
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day ! 
The strife is o'er, — the pangs of Nature close, 
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes. 
Hark ! ai? the spirit eyes, with eagle gaze, 
The noon of Heaven undazzled by the blaze; 
On heavenly winds that waft her to the sky. 
Float the sweet tones of star-born melody ; 
Wild as that hallow'd anthem sent to hail 
Bethlehem's shepherds in the lonely vale. 
When Jordan hush'd his waves, and midnight still 
Watch'd on the holy towers of Zion hill ! 

* * 4fr * -Sfr *. 

Eternal Hope ! when yonder spheres sublime 
Peal'd their first notes to sound the march of Time, 
Thy joyous youth began — but not to fade — 
When all the sister planets have decay'd ; 
When, wrapt in fire, the realms of ether glow, 
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below, 
Thou, undismay'd, shalt o'er the ruins smile, 
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile. 

The 

W Y03IING— GER TR UDE. 

On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming ! 

Although the wild-flower on thy ruin'd wall 
And roofless homes, a sad remembrance bring 

Of what thy gentle people did befall ; 

Yet thou M^ert once the loveliest land of all 
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore. 

Sweet land ! may I thy lost delights recall, 
And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore, 
Whose beauty was the love of Pennsylvania's shore, 
^fr -x- * * * * 

The rose of England bloom'd on Gertrude's cheek, — 

What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire 
A Briton's independence taught to seek 

Far western worlds ; and there his household fire 

The light of social love did long inspire. 
And many a halcyon day he lived to see, 

Unbroken but by one misfortune dire, 
When fate had reft his mutual heart — but she 
Was gone — and Gertrude climb'd a widow'd fathei-'s knee. 

A loved bequest, — and I may half impart, 

To them that feel the strong paternal tie, 
How like a new existence to his heart 

That living flower uprose beneath his eye, 

Dear as she was from cherub infancy, 



340 



CAMPBELL. 



From hours when she would round his gar(ien play, 

To time when, as the ripening years went by, 
Her lovely mind could culture well repay, 
And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day. 

I may not paint those thousand infant charms ; 

(Unconscious fascination, undesign'd I) 
The orison repeated in his arms. 

For God to bless her sire and all mankind ; 

The book, the bosom on his knee reclined, 
Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con, 

(The playmate ere' the teacher of her mind :) 
All uncompanion'd else her heart had gone. 
Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer shone. 

* * * * * * <«• 

It seem'd as if those scenes sweet influence had 

On Gertrude's soul, and kindness like their own 
Inspired those eyes affectionate and glad, 

That seem'd to love whate'er they look'd upon ; 

Whether with Hebe's mirth her features shone. 
Or if a shade more pleasing them o'ercast, 

(As if for heavenly musing meant alone;) 
Yet so becomingly the expression past, 
That each succeeding look was lovelier than the last. 

Nor guess I, was that Pennsylvanian home. 

With all its picturesque and balmy grace. 
And fields that were a luxury to roam, 

Lost on the soul that look'd from such a face ! 

Enthusiast of the woods ! when years apace 
Had bound thy lovely waist with woman's zone, 

The sunrise path, at morn, I see thee trace 
To hills with high magnolia overgrown, 
And joy to breathe the groves, romantic and alone. 

The sunrise drew her thoughts to Europe forth, 

That thus apostrophized its viewless scene : 
"Land of my fathePs love, my mother's birth! 

The home of kindred 1 have never seen ! 

We know not other, — oceans are between ; 
Yet say ! far friendly hearts, from whence we came, 

Of us does oft remembrance intervene ? 
My mother sure, — my sire a thought may claim ; 
But Gertrude is to you an unregarded name. 

"And yet, loved England! when thy name I trace 
In many a pilgrim's tale and poet's song, 

How can I choose but wish for one embrace 
Of them, the dear unknown, to whom belong 
My mother's looks, — perhaps her likeness strong ? 

O parent ! with what reverential awe 

From features of thine own related throng. 

An image of thy face my soul could draw ! 
And see thee once again whom I too shortly saw !" ^ 



1 " The greatest effort of Campbell's genius 
was his Oertrude of Wyoming ; nor is it likely 
ever to be excelled in its own peculiar style 
of excellence. It is superior to the Pleasures 



of Hope in the only one thing in which that 
poem could be surpassed, — purity of diction ; 
while in pathos and in imaginative power it 
is no whit inferior." — Moir. 



CAMPBELL. 341 



THE SOLDIER'S DREA3L 

Our bugles sang truce, — for the night-cloud had lower' d, 
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; 

And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower' d, 
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. 

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, 
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain, 

At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, 
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. 

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, 
Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track ; 

'Twas Autumn, — and sunshine arose on the way 

To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. 

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft 

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young ; 

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, 

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. 

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore 

From my home and my weeping friends never to part • 

My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er, 
And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart. 

Stay, stay with ua, — rest, thou art weary and worn ; 

And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay : 
But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, 

And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. 



THE RIVER OF LIFE. 

The more we live, more brief appear 

Our life's succeeding stages ; 
A day to childhood seems a year, 

And years like passing ages. 

The gladsome current of our youth, 

Ere passion yet disorders. 
Steals lingering like a river smooth 

Along its grassy borders. 

But as the careworn cheek grows wan, 

And sorrow's shafts fly thicker. 
Ye stars, that measure life to man. 

Why seem your courses quicker ? 

When joys have lost their bloom and breath. 

And life itself is vapid. 
Why, as we reach the Falls of Death, 

Feel we its tide more rapid? 

It may be strange, yet who would change 
Time's course to slower speeding, 
29* 



342 



CAMPBELL. 



When one by one our friends have gone 
And left our bosoms bleeding ? 

Heaven gives our years of fading strength 

Indemnifying fleetness ; 
And those of youth a seeming length 

Proportiou'd to their sweetness. 



HOHENLINDEN.^ 

On Linden, when the sun was low, 
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, 
And dark as winter was the flow 
Of Iser,^ rolling rapidly. 

But Linden saw another sight, 
When the drum beat, at dead of night, 
Commanding fires of death to light 
The darkness of her scenery. 

By torch and trumpet fast array'd. 
Each horseman drew his battle-blade, 
And furious every charger neigh' d, 
To join the dreadful revelry. 

Then shook the hills with thunder riven, 
Then rush'd the steed to battle driven, 
And louder than the bolts of heaven, 
Far flash'd the red artillery. 

But redder yet that light shall glow 
On Linden's hills of stained snow. 
And bloodier yet the torrent flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 

'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun 
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, 
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun* 
Shout in their sulphurous canopy. 

The combat deepens. On, ye brave, 
Who rush to glory or the grave ! 
Wave, Munich I all thy banners wave ! 
And charge with all thy chivalry ! 

Few, few shall part, where many meet I 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 
And every turf beneath their feet 
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 



1 HohenHnden — a village of Germany, about 
twenty miles from Munich, where General 
j^oreau completely defeated the combined 



army of Austrians and Bavarians on the i 
of December, 1800. 

a Iser, or Isar — a tributary of the Danube. 

8 Hun—tU& A^stri^n fQr9§. 



CAMPBELL. 



343 



YE 3IARINERS OF ENGLAND.^ 

A NAVAL ODE. 

Ye mariners of England ! 

That guard our native seas ; 
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, 

The battle and the breeze ! 
Your glorious standard launch again 

To match another foe ! 
And sweep through the deep, 

While the stormy winds do blow ; 
While the battle rages loud and long, 

And the stormy winds do blow. 

The spirits of your fathers 

Shall start from every wave !^ 
For the declc it was their field of fame, — 

And Ocean was their grave : 
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, 

Your manly hearts shall glow, 
As ye sweep through the deep, 

While the stormy winds do blow ; 
While the battle rages loud and long, 

And the stormy winds do blow. 

Britannia needs no bulwarks, 

No towers along the steep ; ^ 
Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, 

Her home is on the deep. 
With thunders from her native oak, 

She quells the floods below. 
As they roar on the shore. 

When the stormy winds do blow ; 
When the battle rages loud and long. 

And the stormy winds do blow. 

The meteor flag of England 

Shall yet terrific burn ; 
Till danger's troubled night depart. 

And the star of peace return. 
Then, then, ye ocean warriors ! 

Our song and feast shall flow 
To the fame of your name, 

When the storm has ceased to blow ; 
When the fiery fight is heard no more. 

And the storm has ceased to blow. 



1 " This spirited lyric well deserves to take 
rank with Ride Britannia. The main blemish 
iu both is the want of a specific recognition 



of Almighty power as the only source of our 
own."— Payne. 



844 HOOD. 



THOMAS HOOD, 1798-18 4S. 

Few writers of this century have done more for humanity than the comic 
poet and quaint humorist, Thomas Hood. He was the son of a bookseller in 
London, and born in the year 1798. He was educated for the counting-house, 
and at an early age was placed under the charge of a city merchant. But the 
delicate state of his health soon put an end to his mercantile career, and he 
was sent to Dundee, to reside with some relatives. There he evinced a tasto 
for letters, and made his first literary venture in the local journals. On the re- 
establishment of his health he returned to London, and was apprenticed to an 
uncle, an engraver. But, though he always retained his early love for the art, 
and had much facility in drawing, as the many quaint illustrations to his works 
testify, his tendencies were literary, and in 1821 he became a sort of sub-editor 
of the London Magazine. When this work stopped, he wrote for various 
periodicals, and was for some time editor of the New Monthly Magazine. It is 
sad to relate that the life of this gifted man was clouded by misfortunes : it 
was one of incessant exertion, imbittered by ill health and all the disquiets 
and uncertainties incidental to authorship. When almost prostrated by disease, 
the government stepped in to relieve him with a small pension, — one hundred 
pounds ; and, after his premature death, on the 3d of May, 1845, his literary 
friends contributed liberally towards the support of his widow and family. 

Mr. Hood's productions are in various styles and forms. His first work, 
Whims and Oddities, attained to great popularity. He afterward tried a series 
of National Tales; but his prose was less attractive than his verse. A regular 
novel, Tylney Hall, was a more decided failure. In poetry he made a great 
advance. TTie Plea of the Midsummer Fairies is a rich imaginative work, supe- 
rior to his other productions. As editor of the Comic Annual, and also of some 
of the literary annuals, Mr. Hood increased his reputation for sportive humor 
and poetical fancy ; and he continued the same vein in his Up the Rhine, — a 
satire on the absurdities of English travellers. In 1843 he issued two volumes 
of Whimsicalities, d Periodical Gathering, collected chiefly from the New 
Monthly Magazine. His last production of any importance was the Song of the 
Shirt, which first appeared in Punch, and was as admirable in spirit as in com- 
position. This striking picture of the miseries of the poor London sempstresses 
struck home to the heart, and aroused the benevolent feelings of the public. In 
most of Hood's works, even in his puns and levities, there is a "spirit of good" 
directed to some kindly or philanthropic object. Indeed, few writers surprise 
us so often with fine touches of humane feeling. He had serious and mournful 
jests, which were the more eJQfective from their strange and unexpected 
combinations. Those who came to laugh at folly remained to sympathize 
with want and sufFering.i 

A PARENTAL ODE TO MY INFANT SON. 



Thou happy, happy elf! 
(But stop — first let me kiss away that tear)- 

Thou tiny image of myself! 
(My love, he's poking peas into his ear) — 



Read Gentleman^s Magazine, July, 1845 ; Edinburgh Review, Ixxxiii, 375. 



HOOD. 345 

Thou merry, laughing sprite ! 

With spirits feather light, 
Untouch' d by sorrow, and unsoil'd by sin — 
(Good heavens ! the child is swallowing a pin !) — 

Thou little tricksy Puck ! 
"With antic toys so funnily bestuck, 
Light as the singing bird that wings the air, 
(The door ! the door ! he'll tumble down the stair !) 

Thou darling of thy sire ! 
(Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire !) 

Thou imp of mirth and joy ! 
In love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, 
Thou idol of thy parents — (Stop the boy ! 

There goes my ink !) 

Thou cherub — but of earth ! 
Fit playfellow for fays by moonlight pale, 

In harmless sport and mirth, 
(The dog will bite him if he pulls its tail !) 

Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey 
From every blossom in the world that blows, 

Singing in youth's Elysium ever sunny, 
(Another tumble — that's his precious nose !) 

Thy fathei-'s pride and hope ! 
(He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope !) 
With pure heart newly stamp'd from nature's mint, 

(Where did he learn that squint ?) 

Thou young domestic love ! 
(He'll have that jug off with another shove !) 

Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest ! 

(Are those torn clothes his best !) 

Little epitome of man ! 
(He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan !) 
Touch' d with the beauteous tints of dawning life, 

(He's got a knife!) 

Thou enviable being ! 
No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing. 

Play on, play on, 

My elfin John ! 
Toss the light ball — bestride the stick, 
(I knew so many cakes would make him sick !) 
With fancies buoyant as the thistle down, 
Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, 

With many a lamb-like frisk, 
(He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown.) 

Thou pretty opening rose ! 
(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) 
Balmy, and breathing music like the south, 
(He really brings my heart into my mouth !) 
Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star, 
(I wish that window had an iron bar !) 
Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove — 
(I'll tell you what, my love, 
I cannot write unless he's sent above !) 



346 HOOD. 



THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 

With fingers weary and worn, 

With eyelids heavy and red, 
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, 

Plying her needle and thread — 
Stitch! stitch! stitch! 

In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, 

She sang the " Song of the Shirt 1" 

"Work! work! work! 

While the cock is crowing aloof I 
And work — work — work ! 

Till the stars shine through the roof I 
It's oh ! to be a slave 

Along with the barbarous Turk, 
Where woman has never a soul to save, 

If THIS is Christian work ! 

" Work — work — work ! 

Till the brain begins to swim ; 
Work — work — work ! 

Till the eyes are heavy and dim I 
Seam, and gusset, and band, 

Band, and gusset, and seam. 
Till over the buttons I fall asleep, 

And sew them on in my dream I 

** Oh ! men with sisters dear ! 

Oh ! men with mothers and wives I 
It is not linen you're wearing out, 

But human creatures' lives ! 
Stitch — stitch — stitch ! 

In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
Sewing at once, with a double thread, 

A SHROUD as well as a shirt ! 

" But why do I talk of death, 

That phantom of grisly bone ? 
I hardly fear his terrible shape, 

It seems so like my own — 
It seems so like my own. 

Because of the fast I keep : 
O God ! that bread should be so dear, 

And flesh and blood so cheap ! 

"Work — work — work ! 

My labor never flags ; 
And what are its wages ? A bed of straw, 

A crust of bread — and rags : 
A shatter' d roof — and this naked floor — 

A table — a broken chair — 
And a wall so blank my shadow I thank 

For sometimes falling there I 



HOOD. 

"Work — work — work ! 

From weary chime to chime ; 
Work — work — work ! 

As prisoners work for crime I 
Band, and gusset, and seam, 

Seam, and gusset, and band. 
Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb' d, 

As well as the weary hand I 

" Work — work — work, 

In the dull December light: 
And work — work — work ! 

When the weather is warm and bright: 
While underneath the eaves 

The brooding swallows cling, 
As if to show me their sunny backs, 

And twit me with the spring. 

"Oh! but to breathe the breath 

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet; 
With the sky above my head, 

And the grass beneath my feet : 
For only one short hour 

To feel as I used to feel, 
Before I knew the woes of want. 

And the walk that costs a meal I 

"Oh! but for one short hour! 

A respite, however brief! 
No blessed leisure for love or hope, 

But only time for grief! 
A little weeping would ease my heart, — 

But in their briny bed 
My tears must stop,' for every drop 

Hinders needle and thread !" 

With fingers weary and worn. 

With eyelids heavy and red, 
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, 

Plying her needle and thi-ead ; 
Stitch — stitch — stitch ! 

In poverty, hunger, and dirt ; 
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, — 
Would that its tone could reach the rich I— 

She sung this "Song of the Shirt!" 

THE DEATH-BED. 

We watched her breathing through the night, 

Her breathing soft and low. 
As in her breast the wave of life 

Kept heaving to and fro. 

So silently we seemed to speak, 

So slowly moved about. 
As we had lent her half our powers 

To eke her living out. 



347 



348 HOOD. 



Our very hopes belied our fears, 
Our fears our hopes belied : — 

We thought her dying when she slept, 
And sleeping when she died. 

For when the morn came, dim and sad, 
And chill with early showers. 

Her quiet eyelids closed, — she had 
Another morn than ours. 



THE LADY'S DREAM. 

The lady lay in her bed, 

Her couch so warm and soft, 
But her sleep was restless and broken still ; 

For, turning oft and oft 
From side to side, she mutter'd and moan'd, 

And toss'd her arms aloft. 

At last she started up, 

And gazed on the vacant air 
With a look of awe, as if she saw 

Some dreadful phantom there, — 
And then in the pillow she buried her face 

From visions ill to bear. 

The very curtain shook, 

Her terror was so extreme. 
And the light that fell on the broider'd quilt 

Kept a tremulous gleam ; 
And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried, 

" Oh me ! that awful dream ! 

"That weary, weary walk. 

In the churchyard's dismal ground ! 

And those horrible things, with shady wings. 
That came and flitted round, — 

Death, death, and nothing but death, 
In every sight and sound ! 

"And oh! those maidens young, 

Who wrought in that dreary room. 
With figures drooping and spectres thin, 

And cheeks without a bloom ; — 
And the voice that cried, * For the pomp of pride 

We haste to an early tomb ! 

" 'For the pomp and pleasures of pride, 

We toil like the African slaves, 
And only to earn a home, at last. 

Where yonder cypress waves ;' — 
And then it pointed, — I never saw 

A ground so full of graves ! 

"And still the coffins came, 

With their sorrowful trains and slow; 



HOOD. 349 

Coffin after coffin still, 

A sad and sickening show; 
From grief exempt, I never had dreamt 

Of sucli* a world of woe ! 

''Of the hearts that daily break, 

Of the tears that hourly fall, 
Of the many, many troubles of life 

That grieve this earthly ball, — 
Disease and Hunger, Pain and Want ; 

But now I dream of them all ! 

"For the blind and the cripple were there, 

And the babe that pined for bread. 
And the houseless man, and the widow poor 

Who begg'd — to bury the dead ! 
The naked, alas ! that I might have clad, 

The famish'd I might have fed ! 

"The sorrow T might have soothed. 

And the unregarded tears ! 
For many a thronging shape was there, 

From long forgotten years, — 
Ay, even the poor rejected Moor, 

Who raised my childish fears ! 

" Each pleading look, that, long ago, 

I scann'd with a heedless eye; 
Each face was gazing as plainly there 

As when I pass'd it by ; 
Woe, woe for me if the past should be 

Thus present when I die ! 

" No need of sulphurous lake. 

No need of fiery coal, 
But only that crowd of human-kind 

Who wanted pity and dole, — 
In everlasting retrospect, — 

Will wring my sinful soul ! 

"Alas! I have walk' d through life 

Too heedless where I trod ; 
Nay, helping to trample my fellow- worm 

And fill the burial sod, — 
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls 

Not unmark'd of God ! 

" I drank the richest draughts, 

And ate whatever is good, — 
Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit. 

Supplied my hungry mood ; 
But I never remember'd the wretched ones 

That starve for want of food ! 

"I dress'd as the nobles dress. 
In cloth of silver and gold, 
30 



350 



HOOD. 



With silk, and satin, and costly furs, 

In many an ample fold : 
But I never remembei*'d the naked limba 

That froze with winter's cold. 

" The wounds I might have heal'd ! 

The human sorrow and smart ! 
And yet it never was in my soul 

To play so ill a part : 
But evil is wrought by want of thought 

As well as want of heart !" 

She clasp' d her fervent hands, 
And the tears began to stream ; 

Large, and bitter, and fast they fell, 
Remorse was so extreme ! 

And yet, oh, yet, that many a dame 
Would dream the Lady's Dream ! 



THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
" Drown'd ! drown'd !" — Hamlet. 



One more unfortunate, 
Weary of breath. 
Rashly importunate, 
Gone to her death ! 

Take her up tenderly, 
Lift her with care ; 
Fashion'd so slenderly, 
Young, and so fair ! 

Look at her garments 
Clinging like cerements ; 
While the wave constantly 
Drips from her clothing ; 
Take her up instantly, 
Loving, not loathing. — 

Touch her not scornfully ; 
Think of her mournfully, 
Gently and humanly; 
Not of the stains of her. 
All that remains of her 
Now is pure womanly. 

Make no deep scrutiny 
Into her mutiny 
Rash and undutiful : 
Past all dishonor. 
Death has left on her 
Only the beautiful. 

Still, for all slips of hers, 
One of Eve's family, — 
Wipe those poor lips of hers, 
Oozing so clammily. 

Loop up her tresses 
Escaped from the comb,- 



Her fair auburn tresses ; 
Whilst wonderment guesses, 
Where was her home ? 

Who was her father? 
Who was her mother? 
Had she a sister? 
Had she a brother? 
Or was there a dearer one 
Still, and a nearer one 
Yet, than all other? 

Alas ! for the rarity 
Of Christian charity 
Under the sun ! 
Oh ! it was pitiful ! 
Near a whole city full, 
Home she had none. 

Sisterly, brotherly. 
Fatherly, motherly 
Feelings had changed? 
Love, by harsh evidence, 
Thrown from its eminence ; 
Even God's providence 
Seeming estranged. 

Where the lamps quiver 
So far in the river. 
With many a light 
From window and casement, 
From garret to basement. 
She stood, with amazement, 
Houseless by night. 

The bleak wind of March 
Made her tremble and shiver; 



HOOD. 



351 



But not the dark arch, 
Or the black flowing river; 
Mad from life's history, 
Glad to death's mystery, 
Swift to be hurl'd— 
Anywhere, anywhere 
Out of the world ! 

In she plunged boldly, 
No matter how coldly 
The rough river ran, — 
Over the brink of it. 
Picture it, think of it, 
Dissolute Man ! 
Lave in it, drink of it, 
Then, if you can ! 

Take her up tenderly, 
Lift her with care ; 
Fashion'd so slenderly. 
Young, and so fair! 

Ere her limbs frigidly 
Stiften too rigidly, 
Decently, — kindly, — 



Smooth, and compose them ; 
And her eyes, close them, 
Staring so blindly I 

Dreadfully staring 
Thro' muddy impurity. 
As when with the daring 
Last look of despairing 
Fix'd on futurity. 

Perishing gloomily, 
Spurr'd by contumely. 
Cold inhumanity, 
Burning insanity, 
Into her rest. — 
Cross her hands humbly. 
As if praying dumbly, 
Over her breast ! 

Owning her weakness. 
Her evil behavior. 
And leaving, with meekness, 
Her sins to her Saviour. 



SALLY SIMPKIN'S LAMENT. 

" Oh, what is that comes gliding in. 
And quite in middling haste ? 

It is the picture of my Jones, 
And painted to the waist. 

" It is not painted to the life. 
For where's the trowsers blue ? 

Oh, Jones, my dear ! — Oh dear, my Jones, 
What is become of you ?" 

" Oh, Sally dear, it is too true, — 

The half that you remark 
Is come to say my other half 

Is bit off by a shark ! 

" Oh, Sally, sharks do things by halves, 

Yet most completely do ! 
A bite in one place seems enough, 

But I've been bit in two. 

" You know I once was all your own, 

But now a shark must share ! 
But let that pass, — for now to you 

I'm neither here nor there. 

" Alas ! death has a strange divorce 

Effected in the sea : 
It has divided me from you, 

And even me from me ! 

" Don't fear my ghost will walk o' nights 
To haunt, as people say ; 



352 HOOD. 



My ghost canH walk ; for, oh, my legs 
Are many leagues away ! 

" Lord ! think when I am swimmmg round, 
And looking where the boat is, 

A shark just snaps away a half, 
Without ' a quarter's notice.' 

" One half is here, the other half 

Is near Columbia placed ; 
Oh, Sally, I have got the whole 

Atlantic for my waist. 

" But now, adieu ! — a long adieu ! 

I've solved death's awful riddle. 
And would say more, but I am doom'd 

To break oil' in the middle I" 



THE ART OF BOOK-KEEPING. 

How hard, when those who do not wish 

To lend, thus lose, their books, 
Are snared by anglers — folks that fish 

With literary hooks — 
Who call and take some favorite tome, 

But never read it through ; 
They thus complete their set at home 

By making one at you. 

I, of my " Spenser" quite bereft. 

Last winter sore was shaken ; 
Of " Lamb" I've but a quarter left. 

Nor could I save my " Bacon ;" 
And then I saw my " Crabbe" at last, 

Like Hamlet, backward go ; 
And, as the tide was ebbing fast. 

Of course I lost my " Bowe." 

My " Mallet" served to knock me down, 

'Which makes me thus a talker ; 
And once, when I was out of tOAvn, 

My " Johnson" proved a " Walker." 
While studying o'er the fire one day, 

My " HoLbes" amidst the smoke. 
They bore my '* Colman" clean away. 

And carried ofi' my " Coke." 

They pick'd my " Locke," to me far more . 

Than Bramah's patent worth, 
And now my losses I deplore, 

Without a " Home" on earth. 
If once a book you'll let them lift. 

Another they conceal, 
For though I caught them stealing " Swift," 

As swiftly went my " Steele." 

" Hope" is not now upon my shelf, 
Where late he stood elated ; 



HOOD. 353 

But, what is strange, my " Pope" himself 

Is excommunicated. 
My little " Suckling" in the grave 

Is sunk to swell the ravage ; 
And what Avas Crusoe's fate to save, 

'Twas mine to lose, — a " Savage." 

Even " Glovei-'s" works I cannot put 

My frozen hands upon, 
Though ever since I lost my " Foote" 

My *•' Bunyan" has been gone. 
My " Hoyle" with " Cotton" went oppressed ; 

My " Taylor," too, must fail ; 
To save my " Goldsmith" from arrest, 

In vain I offer'd '* Bayle." 

I " Prior" sought, but could not see 

The " Hood" so late in front ; 
And when I turn'd to hunt for '' Lee," 

Oh, where was my " Leigh Hunt" ? 
I tried to laugh, old care to tickle. 

Yet could not " Tickell" touch ; 
And then, alack ! I miss'd my " Mickle," 

And surely mickle's much. 

'Tis quite enough my griefs to feed, 

My sorrows to excuse. 
To think I cannot read my "Eeid," 

Nor even use my " Hughes." 
My classics would not quiet lie, — 

A thing so fondly hoped ; 
Like Dr. Primrose, I may cry, 

My " Livy" has eloped. 

My life is ebbing fast away ; 

I suffer from these shocks ; 
And though I fix'd a lock on " Gray," 

There's gray upon my locks. 
I'm far from '' Young," — am growing pale ; 

I see my " Butler" fly ; 
And when they ask about my ail, 

'Tis " Burton," I reply. 

They still have made me slight returns, 

And thus my griefs divide ; 
For, oh, they cured me of my " Burns," 

And eased my " Akenside." 
But all I think I shall not say. 

Nor let my anger burn. 
For, as they never found me " Gay," 

They have not left me " Sterne." 

30* 



354 SYDNJEY SMITH. 



SYDNEY SMITH, 177Um5. 

This most accomplished scholar and very original writer was born at Wood- 
ford, near London, in the year 1771. He was educated at Winchester College, 
and thence elected to Kew College, Oxford, where he obtained a fellowship. 
He was ordained to a curacy in Wiltshire, and afterwards, in 1801, was among 
the foremost of the projectors of the Edinburgh Review. But it is altogether 
better that he should speak for himself, as his subsequent movements are thus 
most agreeably noticed in the preface to the recent edition of his collected 
works : — 

FOUNDATION OF THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

When first I went into the church, I had a curacy in the middle 
of Salisbury Plain. The squire of the parish took a fancy to me, 
and requested me to go with his son to reside at the University 
of Weimar : before we could get there, Germany became the seat 
of war, and in stress of politics we put in to Edinburgh, where I 
remained five years. The principles of the French Revolution 
were then fully afloat, and it is impossible to conceive a more 
violent and agitated state of society. Among the first persons 
wdth whom I became acquainted were Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray 
(late Lord Advocate for Scotland), and Lord Brougham ; all of 
them maintaining opinions upon political subjects a little too 
liberal for the dynasty of Dundas, then exercising supreme power 
over the northern division of the island. 

One day we happened to meet in the eighth or ninth story or 
flat in Buccleugh Place, the elevated residence of the then Mr. 
Jeffrey. I proposed that we should set up a review; this was 
acceded to with acclamation. I was appointed editor, and re- 
mained long enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number of the 
Edinburgh Review. The motto I proposed for the Review was — 

" Tenui musam meditamur avend." 
" We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal." 

But this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we took 
our present grave motto^ from Puhlius Syrus, of whom none of us 
had, I am sure, ever read a single line ; and so began what has 
since turned out to be a very important and able journal. When 
I left Edinburgh, it fell into the stronger hands of Lord Jeffrey 
and Lord Brougham, and reached the highest point of popularity 
and success. I contributed from England many articles, which 
I have been foolish enough to collect and publish with some other 
tracts written by me. 

1 Judex damnatub, cum nocens absolvitub, — The judge is condemned, when the guilty is 
acquitted. 



SYDNEY SMITH. 355 

To appreciate the value of the Edinburgh Review, the state of 
England at the period when that journal began should be had in 
remembrance. The Catholics were not emancipated, — the Cor- 
poration and Test Acts were unrepealed, — the Game Laws were 
horribly oppressive, — Steel Traps and Spring Guns were set all 
over the country, — Prisoners tried for their Lives could have no 
Counsel, — Lord Eldon and the Court of Chancery pressed heavily 
upon mankind, — Libel was punished by the most cruel and vin- 
dictive imiDrisonments, — the principles of Political Economy 
were little understood, — the Law of Debt and of Conspiracy were 
upon the worst possible footing, — the enormous wickedness of the 
Slave-Trade was tolerated, — a thousand evils were in existence, 
which the talents of good and able men have since lessened or re- 
moved ; and these eflects have been not a little assisted by the 
honest boldness of the Edinburgh Review. 

I see very little in my reviews to alter or repent of: I always 
endeavored to fight against evil ; and what I thought evil then, 
I tliink evil now. I am heartily glad that all our disqualifying 
laws for religious opinions are abolished, and I see nothing in 
such measures but unmixed good and real increase of strength to 
our Establishment. 

The idea of danger from the extension of the Catholic religion 
in England I utterly deride. The Catholic faith is a misfortune 
to the world ; but those whose faith it conscientiously is, are 
quite right in professing it boldly, and in promoting it by all 
means which the law allows. A physician does not say, " You 
will be well as soon as the bile is got rid of;" but he says, "You 
will not be well until after the bile is got rid of" He knows, 
after the cause of the malady is removed, that morbid habits are 
to be changed, weakness to be supported, organs to be called 
back to their proper exercise, subordinate maladies to be watched, 
secondary and vicarious symptoms to be studied. The physician 
is a wise man ; but the anserous politician insists, after two hun- 
dred years of persecution and ten of emancipation, that Catholic 
Leland should be as quiet as Edmonton or Tooting. 

Again he says, — 

To set on foot ^uch a journal in such times, to contribute 
towards it for many years, to bear patiently the reproach and 
poverty which it caused, and to look back and see that I have 
nothing to retract, and no intemperance and violence to reproach 
myself with, is a career of life which I must think to be extremely 
fortunate. 

After his removal to London. Mr. Smith continued for many years one of the 
most active contributors to the EcUnhurgh Review, writing on Prison Discipline, 
on the abuses and corrupting influence of the Oayne Lavjs, on Transportation 



356 



SYDNEY SMITH. 



to Botany Bay, on Toleration, on Methodism, on Education, on Irish Bulls, on 
Quakerism, on Counsel for Pinsoners, on Chimney -Sweepers, and a variety of 
other topics. In this great city he became an extremely popular preacher, 
and he had among his crowded auditory the wealthy, the titled, and the 
learned. It was thought that his wit, acumen, and learning might be dis- 
played to better advantage elsewhere than in the pulpit. He, therefore, be- 
came a lecturer on the Belles-Lettres at the Royal Institution, and his lectures 
were, of course, attended by overflowing audiences. 

About this time he wrote the celebrated Letters of Peter Plymley, the object 
of which was to rescue the claims of the Irish Catholics from the vast mass of 
prejudice and false reasoning with which the public mind was filled. They 
are among the most amusing and interesting publications of this century. 
Written in the best spirit of controversy, they abound in happy illustrations 
and caustic wit; and though light, lively, and sparkling, these qualities abate 
nothing of their logical force and downright common sense. 

In 1806 the Lord Chancellor gave him the rectory of Foston,i in Yorkshire, 
whither he removed, and, under great difficulties, which he most humorously 
recounts, rebuilt the old parsonage. ^ Here he remained fourteen years, until 
his appointment by Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst to a vacant stall in Bristol 
Cathedral. In 1831 he was appointed by Earl Grey one of the canons resi- 
dentiary of St. Paul's Cathedral, and resided in London during "the season," 
associating with the chief literary men and "Whig politicians of the day, dis- 
tinguished for his almost unrivalled wit and conversational powers, and a con- 
stant visitor at Holland House.^ 

It is undoubtedly true that the prominent characteristic of Sydney Smith's 
mind was wit; and in this light he has been too exclusively viewed. "But 
his character ought to be estimated, and will be by posterity, on far higher 
grounds. When his 'quips and cranks' are lost and forgotten, it will be re- 
membered that he supported the Roman Catholic claims, and that they were 
conceded ; that he strenuously assailed the game-laws, and that they under- 
went great modification ; that he compelled a large portion of the public to 
acknowledge the mischief of our penal settlements ; that he became the advo- 
cate of the wretched chimney-sweepers, and their miseries were alleviated; 
that he contended against many of the unjust provisions of the Church Reform 
Bill, and they were amended; that, whereas, before his time, a man accused 
at the bar of a criminal court might be hanged before he had been half heard, 
now every prisoner has the benefit of a defence by counsel. It will further be 



1 In his hiunoroiis way he said, " When I 
began to thump the cushion of my pulpit, on 
first coming to Foston, — as is my wont when 
I preach, — the accumulated dust of a hundred 
and fifty years made such a cloud that for 
Bome minutes I lost sight of my congrega- 
tion." 

2 " Give me the man who can turn his hand 
to all things, and who is not ashamed to con- 
fess that he can do so ; who can preach a ser- 
mon, nail up a paling, prune a fruit-tree, make 
a water-wheel or a kite for his little boy, write 
an article for Fraser, or a leader for the Times 
or the Spectator. What a fine, genial, many- 
sided life did Sydney Smith lead at his York- 
shire parish! I should have liked, I own, to 
have found in it more traces of the clergy- 
iuan; but perhaps the biographer thought it 



better not to parade these. And in the regard 
of facing all difficulties with a cheerful heart, 
and nobly resoling to be useful and helpful 
in little matters as well as big, I think that 
life was as good a sermon as ever was preached 
from pulpit." — Recreations of a Country Parson, 
p. 125. 

" Sydney Smith had a genuine Christian 
sympathy with his fellow-creatures, and far 
more serious intentions in almost all he wiote 
than the gravest of his opponents could well 
imagine, lie was an extraordinary man, and 
did a great deal of good." — Leigh Hunt's Wit 
and Humor. 

3 Holland House, in Kensington, was, during 
the life of the late Lord Holland, the meeting 
place for Whig politicians, and for the chief 
poets, painters, and scholars of the day. 



SYDNEY SMITH. 357 

freely acknowledged that no public writer was more successful than he in 
denouncing a political humbug or demolishing a literary pretender j that he 
was, on the whole, an upright and benevolent man, and, as the world goes, a 
disinterested politician; that he had opportunities of improving his fortune, 
which he nobly rejected; and that, having lived with unostentatious resjjecta- 
bility, he died without accumulating wealth. "^ 

About three years before his death, Mr. Smith gave the following description 
of himself, in a letter to a correspondent of the New York American : — " I am 
seventy-four years old; and, being a canon of St. Paul's, in London, and rector 
of a parish in the country, my time is equally divided between town and 
country. I am living amidst the best society in the metropolis ; am at ease in 
my circumstances; in tolerable health; a mild Whig; a tolerating church- 
man; and much given to talking, laughing, and noise. I dine with the rich 
in London, and physic the poor in the country; passing from the sauces of 
Dives to the sores of Lazarus, I am, upon the whole, a happy man; have 
found the world an entertaining world ; and am heartily thankful to Provi- 
dence for the part allotted me in it," Mr. Smith died at his residence, No. 56 
Green Street, Hyde Park, London, on the 22d of February, 1845. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF 3I0DERN SER3I0NS. 

The great object of modern sermons is to hazard nothing : their 
characteristic is decent debility ; which alike guards their authors 
from ludicrous errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. 
Every man of sense, in taking up an English sermon, expects to 
find it a tedious essay, full of commonplace morality ; and if the 
fulfilment of such expectations be meritorious, the clergy have 
certainly the merit of not disappointing their readers. 

In pointing out the total want of connection between the privi- 
lege of preaching and the power of preaching well, we are giving 
no opinion as to whether it might or might not be remedied, but 
merely stating a fact. Pulpit discourses have insensibly dwindled 
from speaking to reading, — a practice, of itself, sufficient to stifle 
every germ of eloquence. It is only by the fresh feelings of the 
heart that mankind can be very powerfully affected. What can 
be more ludicrous than an orator delivering stale indignation and 
fervor of a week old ; turning over whole pages of violent pas- 
sions, written out in German text ; reading the tropes and apos- 
trophes into which he is hurried by the ardor of his mind ; and 
so affected at a preconcerted line and page that he is unable to 
proceed any farther ? 

FEMALE EDUCATION. 

A great deal has been said of the original difference of capacity 
between men and women ; as if women were more quick, and men 



1 Read Memoirs, by his dang:hter, Lady Hoi- I book, Wit and Wisdom of Sydney Smith, <&e., 
land; with selections from his letters, edited with a Memoir, by Evert A. Duyckinck. 
by Mi-s. Austin; above all, that admirable \ 



358 SYDNEY SMITH. 

more judicious, — as if women were more remarkable for delicacy te 
of association, and men for stronger powers of attention. AUl 
this, we confess, appears to us very fanciful. That there is a 
difference in the understandings of the men and the women we 
every day meet with, everybody, we suppose, must perceive ; but 
there is none, surely, which may not be accounted for by the 
difference of circumstances in which they have been placed, 
without referring to any conjectural difference of original con- 
formation of mind. As long as boys and girls run about in the 
dirt, and trundle hoops together, they are feoth precisely alike. 
If you catch ujd one half of these creatures, and train them to a 
particular set of actions and opinions, and the other half to a 
perfectly opposite set, of course their understandings will differ 
as one or the other sort of occupations has called this or that 
talent into action. There is surely no occasion to go into any 
deeper or more abstruse reasoning, in order to explain so very 
simple a phenomenon. * * * 

It is said that the effect of knowledge is to make women 
pedantic and affected ; and that nothing can be more offensive 
than to see a woman stepping out of the natural modesty of her 
sex to make an ostentatious display of her literary attainments. 
This may be true enough ; but the answer is so trite and obvious 
that we are almost ashamed to make it. All affectation and dis- 
play proceed from the supposition of possessing something better 
than the rest of the world possesses. Nobody is vain of possessing 
two legs and two arms ; because that is the precise quantity of 
either sort of limb which everybody possesses. 

Diffuse knowledge generally among women, and you will at 
once cure the conceit which knowledge occasions while it is rare. 
Vanity and conceit we shall of course witness in men and women 
as long as the world endures ; but by multiplying the attainments 
upon Avhich these feelings are founded, you increase the difficulty 
of indulging them, and render them much more tolerable, by 
making them the proofs of a much higher merit. When learning 
ceases to be uncommon among women, learned women will cease 
to be affected. * * * 

A great many of the lesser and more obscure duties of life 
necessarily devolve upon the female sex. The arrangement of 
all household matters, and the care of children in their early 
infancy, must of course depend upon them. Now, there is a 
very general notion that the moment you put the education of 
women upon a better footing than it is at present, at that moment 
there will be an end of all domestic economy ; and that, if you 
onc.e suffer women to eat of the tree of knowledge, the rest of 
the family will very soon be reduced to the same kind of aerial 
and unsatisfactory diet. These and all such opinions are refer- 
able to one great and common cause of error, — that man does 



SYDNEY SMITH. 359 

every thing, and that nature does nothing ; and that every thing 
we see is referable to positive institution rather than to original 
feeling. Can any thing, for example, be more perfectly absurd 
than to suppose that the care and perpetual solicitude which a 
mother feels for her children depends upon her ignorance of 
Greek and mathematics ; and that she would desert an infant for 
a quadratic equation ? * * * 

A great part of the objections made to the education of women 
are rather objections made to human nature than to the female 
sex ; for it is surely true that knowledge, where it produces any 
bad effects at all, does as much mischief to one sex as to the 
other, and gives birth to fully as much arrogance, inattention to 
common affairs, and eccentricity among men as it does among 
w^omen. But it by no means follow^s that you get rid of vanity 
and self-conceit because you get rid of learning. Self-complacency 
can never want an excuse ; and the best way to make it more 
tolerable and more useful is to give it as high and as dignified 
an object as possible. But at all events it is unfair to bring 
forward against a part of the world an objection which is equally 
powerful against the whole. When foolish women think they 
have any distinction, they are apt to be proud of it; so are foolish 
men. But we appeal to any one w^ho has lived wdth cultivated 
persons of either sex, whether he has not witnessed as much 
pedantry, as much w^rongheadedness, as much arrogance, and 
certainly a great deal more rudeness, produced by learning in 
men, than in women ; therefore, we should make the accusation 
general, or dismiss it altogether. * * * 

The most beautiful possession which a country can have is a 
noble and rich man, wdio loves virtue and knowledge ; who, with- 
out being feeble or fanatical, is pious, — and who, wdthout being 
factious, is firm and independent ; w^ho is a firm j)romoter of all 
which can shed a lustre upon his country, or promote the peace 
and order of the world. But if these objects are of the import- 
ance w^hich we attribute to them, the education of women must 
be important, as the formation of character for the first seven or 
eight years of life seems to depend almost entirely upon them. 
It is certainly in the power of a sensible and well-educated 
mother to inspire, within that period, such tastes and propensities 
as shall nearly decide the destiny of the future man ; and this is 
done, not only by the intentional exertions of the mother, but by 
the gradual and insensible imitation of the child ; for there is 
something extremely contagious in greatness and rectitude of 
thinking, even at that age ; and the character of the mother with 
whom he passes his early infancy is ahvays an event of the utmost 
importance to the child. * * * » 

One of the greatest pleasures of life is conversation ; and the 
pleasures of conversation are of course enhanced by every increase 



360 



SYDNEY SMITE, 



of knowledge ; not that we should meet together to talk of alkalies 
and angles, or to add to our stock of history and philology, — ■ 
though a little of these things is no bad ingredient in conversa- 
tion ; but let the subject be what it may, there is always a pro- 
digious difference between the conversation of those who have 
been well educated, and of those who have not enjoyed this 
advantage. Education gives fecundity of thought, copiousness 
of illustration, quickness, vigor, fancy, words, images, and illus- 
trations ; it decorates every common thing, and gives the power 
of trifling without being undignified and absurd. The subjects 
themselves may not be wanted, upon which the talents of an 
educated man have been exercised ; but there is always a demand 
for those talents which his education has rendered strong and 
quick. Now, really, nothing can be further from our intention 
than to say any thing rude and unpleasant; but we must be 
excused for observing that it is not now a very common thing to 
be interested by the variety and extent of female knowledge, but 
it is a very common thing to lament that the finest faculties in 
the world have been confined to trifles utterly unworthy of their 
richness and their strength. 

The instruction of women improves the stock of national talents, 
and employs more minds for the instruction and amusement of 
the world ; it increases the pleasures of society by multiplying 
the topics upon which the two sexes take a common interest, and 
makes marriage an intercourse of understanding as well as of 
affection, by giving dignity and importance to the female cha- 
racter. The education of women favors public morals ; it pro- 
vides for CA^ery season of life, as well as for the brightest and the 
best ; and leaves a woman, when she is stricken by the hand of 
time, not as she now is, destitute of every thing, and neglected 
by all ; but with the full power and the splendid attractions of 
knowledge, — difl'using the elegant pleasures of polite literature, 
and receiving the just homage of learned and accomplished 
men.^ 



THE COST OF IIILITABY GLORY. 



We can inform Brother Jonathan what are the inevitable 
consequences of being too fond of glory — Taxes upon every 
article which -enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is 
placed under the foot — taxes upon every thing which it is plea- 
sant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste — taxes upon warmth, light, 
and locomotion — taxes on every thing on earth, and the waters 



71 

IS 1 



1 Mrs. Austin remarks, " Within onr .times 
no man has done so much to obtain for women 
toleration for the exercise of their understand- 
ings, and for the culture of their talents, as 
Sydney Smith." And Mrs. Jameson, in her 



Ethical Fragments, makes a similar acknow- 
ledgment: — "See what he has done for hu- 
manity, for society, for liberty, for truth,— lor 



SYBNEY SMITH. 



361 



under tlie earth — on every thing that comes from abroad, or is 
grown at home — taxes on the raw material — taxes on every fresh 
vahie that is added to it by the industry of man— taxes on the 
sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores 
him to health — on the ermine Avhich decorates the judge, and the 
rope which hangs the criminal — on the poor man's salt, and the 
rich man's spice — on the brass nails of the cofSn, and the ribbons 
of the bride — at bed or board, cou chant or levant, we must pay. 
The schoolboy whips his taxed top ; the beardless youth manages 
his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road ; and the 
dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven 
per cent., into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings him- 
self back upon his chintz bed, which has paid twenty-two per 
cent., and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who has paid a 
license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to 
death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from two 
to ten per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded 
for burying him in the chancel ; his virtues are handed down to 
posterity on taxed marble ; and he is then gathered to his fathers 
— to be taxed no more. In addition to all this, the habit of deal- 
ing with large sums will make the government avaricious and 
profuse ; and the system itself will infallibly generate the base 
vermin of spies and informers, and a still more pestilent race of 
political tools and retainers of the meanest and most odious de- 
scription ; while the prodigious patronage which the collecting of 
this splendid revenue will throw into the hands of government 
will invest it with so vast an influence, and hold out such means 
and temptations to corruption, as all the virtue and j)ublic spirit, 
even of republicans, will be unable to resist.^ 

THE CURSE OF WAR. 

A second great object which I hope will be impressed upon the 
mind of this royal lady is a rooted horror of war, — an earnest 
and passionate desire to keep her people in a state of profound 
peace. The greatest curse which can be entailed upon mankind 
is a state of war. All the atrocious crimes committed in years 
of peace ; all that is spent in peace by the secret corruptions or 
by the thoughtless extravagance of nations, are mere trifles com- 
pared with the gigantic evils which stalk over the world in a 



1 This is all true, very true, but is not appli- 
cable to us, as far as our present national debt 
(1SG6) is concerned ; for this debt has been in- 
curred not from a love of "military glory," 
but to preserve the nation's life by crushing 
the slavemongers' rebellion that tried to destroy 
that life, — a rebellion the most heinous as well 
as the most gigantic ever recorded 8ince the 
rebellion of that " traitor angel" 



" 'Vi'ho first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then 
Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms 
Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons." 

Paradise Lost, ii. 690. 

This is about the proportion of our States 
that the arch-traitor Jefferson Davis "drew 
after him." and for the same horrible purpose, 
—to extend the domain of sin,— the sin and 
curse of slavery. 



I 



U 



362 SYDJ^EY SMITH. 

state of war. God is forgotten in war — every principle of Chris- 
tian charity trampled upon — human labor destroyed — human 
industry extinguished ; you see the son and the husband and the 
brother dying miserably in distant lands — you see the waste of 
human affections — you see the breaking of human hearts — you 
hear the shrieks of widows and children after the battle — and 
you walk over the mangled bodies of the wounded calling for 
death. I would say to that royal child, worship God, by loving 
peace — it is not your humanity to pity a beggar by giving him 
food and raiment — Jean do that ; that is the charity of the humble 
and the unknown ; widen you your heart for the more expanded 
miseries of mankind — pity the mothers of the peasantry, who see 
their sons torn away from their families — pity your poor subjects 
crowded into hospitals, and calling in their last breath upon their 
distant country and their young queen — pity the stupid, frantic 
folly of human beings, who are always ready to tear each other 
to pieces and to deluge the earth with each other's blood ; this is 
your extended humanity, and this the great field of your com- 
passion. Extinguish in your heart the fiendish love of military 
glory, from which your sex does not necessarily exempt you, and 
to which the wickedness of flatterers may urge you. Say upon 
your death-bed, " I have made few orphans in my reign — I have 
made few widows — my object has been peace. I have used all 
the weight of my character, and all the power of my situation, 
to check the irascible passions of mankind, and to turn them to 
the arts of honest industry ; this has been the Christianity of my 
throne, and this the gospel of my sceptre ; in this way I have 
striven to worship my Redeemer and my Judge." 

From a Letter to the Queen on her accession to the throne. 

Of his keen wit, and of the manner in which he "did up" authors, the follow- 
ing is a fine specimen. It is the shortest review in the whole eighty-five 
volumes of the Edinburgh, and I give it entire. It is a notice of the "Anni- 
versary Sermon of the Royal Humane Society, by "W. Langford, D.D." 

A SOPORIFIC SERMON. 

An accident which happened to the gentleman engaged in re- 
viewing this sermon proves, in the most striking manner, the im- 
portance of this charity for restoring to life persons in whom the 
vital power is suspended. He was discovered, with Dr. Lang- 
ford's discourse lying open before him, in a state of the most pro- 
found sleep ; from which he could not, by any means, be awakened 
for a great length of time. By attending, however, to the rules 
prescribed by the Humane Society, flinging in the smoke of 
tobacco, applying hot flannels, and carefully removing the dis- 
course itself to a great distance, the critic was restored to his dis- 
consolate brothers. 



SYDNEY SMITH. 363 

The only account he could give of himself was that he remem- 
bers reading on, regularly, till he came to the following pathetic 
description of a drowned tradesman ; beyond which he recollects 
nothing : — 

"But to the individual himself, as a man, let us add the interruption to all 
the temporal business in which his interest was engaged. To him, indeed, 
now apparently lost, the world is as nothing; but it seldom happens that man 
can live for himself alone : society parcels out its concerns in various con- 
nections, and from one head issue waters which run down in many channels. 
The spring being suddenly cut off, what confusion must follow in the streams 
which have flowed from its source! It may be that all the expectations 
reasonably raised of approaching prosperity, to those who have embarked in 
the same occupation, may at once disappear, and the important interchange 
of commercial faith be broken off before it could be brought to any advan- 
tageous conclusion." 

This extract will suffice for the style of the sermon. The 
charity itself is above all praise. 



ST A GE- CO A CH TEA YELLING. 

Most people sulk in stage-coaches ; I always talk. I have had 
some amusing journeys from this habit. On one occasion, a 
gentleman in the coach with me, with whom I had been con- 
versing for some time, suddenly looked out of the window as we 
approached York, and said, " There is a very clever man, they 

say, but a d odd fellow, lives near here, — Sidney Smith, I 

believe." "He may be a very odd fellow," said I, taking off my 
hat to him and laughing, " and I dare say he is ; but odd as he 
is, he is here, very much at your service." Poor man ! I thought 
he would have sunk into his boots, and vanished through the bed 
of the carriage, he was so distressed ; but I thought I had better 
tell him at once, or he might proceed to say I had murdered my 
grandmother, which I must have resented, you know. 



DRESS AND BEAUTY. 

Never teach false morality. How exquisitely absurd to tell 
girls that beauty is of no value, dress of no use ! Beauty is of 
value ; her whole prospects and happiness in life may often depend 
upon a new gown or a becoming bonnet, and if she has five grains 
of common sense she will find this out. The great thing is to 
teach her their just value, and that there must be something 
better under the bonnet than a pretty face for real happiness. 
But never sacrifice truth. 



364 SYDNEY SMITE. 



BL UE-STOCKINGS. 



Keep as much as possible on the grand and common road of 
life ; patent educations or habits seldom succeed. Depend upon 
it, men set more value on the cultivated minds than on the 
accomplishments of women, which they are rarely able to appre- 
ciate. It is a common error, but it is an error, that literature 
unfits women for the every-day business of life. It is not so with 
men ; you see those of the most cultivated minds constantly 
devoting their time and attention to the most homely objects. 
Literature gives women a real and proper weight in society, but 
then they must use it with discretion ; if the stocking is hlue, the 
petticoat must be long, as my friend Jeffrey says ; the want of 
this has furnished food for ridicule in all ages. 

BOGS. 

No, I don't like dogs ; I always expect them to go mad. A 
lady asked me once for a motto for her dog Spot. I proposed, 
" Out, damned Spot !" ^ but she did not think it sentimental enough. 
You remember the story of the French marquise, who, Avhen her 
pet lap-dog bit a piece out of her footman's leg, exclaimed, "Ah, 
poor little beast ! I hope it won't make him sick." I called one 

day on Mrs. , and her lap-dog flew at my leg and bit it. 

After pitying her dog, like the French marquise, she did all she 
could to comfort me, by assuring me the dog was a Dissenter, 
and hated the Church, and was brought up in a Tory family. 
But whether the bite came from madness or Dissent, I knew 
myself too well to neglect it; and went on the instant to a 
surgeon and had it cut out, making a mem. on the way to enter 
that house no more. 

The following extract from Peter TlymUy's Letters is a fine specimen of 
his inimitable wit in ridiculing the idea, then prevalent, that a conspiracy, 
headed by the pope, had been formed against the Protestant religion : — 

CONSPIRACY OF THE POPE. 

The pope has not landed, — nor are there any curates sent out 
after him, — nor has he been hid at St. Alban's by the Dowager 
Lady Spencer, — nor dined privately at Holland House, — nor 
been seen near Dropmore, If these fears exist (which I do not 
believe), they exist only in the mind of the chancellor of the 
exchequer [the late Mr. Spencer Perceval] ; they emanate from 
his zeal for the Protestant interest, and, though they reflect the 
highest honor upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must 

1 Ladj' Macbetli's exclamation. 



SYDNEY SMITH, 365 

certainly be considered as more ambiguous proofs of the sanity 
and vigor of his understanding. By this time, however, the best- 
informed clergy in the neighborhood of the metropolis are con- 
vinced that the rumor is without foundation ; and, though the 
pope is probably hovering about our coast in a fishing-smack, it 
is most likely he will fall a prey to the vigilance of our cruisers : 
and it is certain he has not yet polluted the Protestantism of our 
soil. Exactly in the same manner, the story of the wooden gods 
seized at Charing Cross by an order from the Foreign Office 
turns out to be without the shadow of a foundation ; instead of 
the angels and archangels mentioned by the informer, nothing 
was discovered but a wooden image of Lord Mulgrave going 
down to Chatham as a head-piece for the Spanker gun- vessel : it 
was an exact resemblance of his lordship in his military uniform, 
and therefore as little like a god as can well be imagined. 

In a similar vein he holds up, in a manner highly ludicrous and amusing, 
the fears entertained by England of a French invasion. He is arguing that, 
notwithstanding these fears, the British rulers neglected the obvious means 
of self-defence against 

THE FRENCH INVASION. 

As for the spirit of the peasantry in making a gallant defence 
behind hedgerows and through plate-racks and hencoops, highly 
as I think of their bravery, I do not know any nation in Europe 
so likely to be struck with panic as the English ; and this from 
their total unacquaintance with the science of war. Old wheat 
and beans blazing for twenty miles round ; cart-mares shot ; sows 
of Lord Somerville's breed running wild over the country ; the 
minister of the parish wounded sorely in his hinder parts ; Mrs. 
Plymley in fits ; all these scenes of war an Austrian or a Rus- 
sian has seen three or four times ; but it is now three centuries 
since an English pig has fallen in a fair battle upon English 
ground, or a farm-house been rifled, or a clergyman's wife been 
subjected to any other proposals of love than the connubial 
endearments of her sleek and orthodox mate. The old edition 
of Plutarch's Lives, which lies in the corner of your parlor 
window, has contributed to w^ork you up to the most romantic 
expectations of our Roman behavior. You are persuaded that 
Lord Amherst will defend Kew Bridge like Codes ; that some 
maid of honor will break away from her captivity and swim over 
the Thames ; that the Duke of York will burn his capitulating 
hand ; and little Mr. Sturges Bourne give forty years' purchase 
for Moulsham Hall while the French are encamped upon it. I 
hope we shall witness all this, if the French do come ; but in the 
mean time I am so enchanted with the ordinary English behavior 
of these invaluable persons that I earnestly pray no opportunity 

31* 



866 SYDNEY SMITH. 

may be given them for Roman valor, and for those very un-| 
Roman pensions which they would all, of course, take especial! 
care to claim in consequence. ' 



FIREPLACES. 

Never neglect your fireplaces ; I have paid 
mine, and could burn you all out in a moment. Much of the 
cheerfulness of life depends upon it. Who could be miserable 
with that fire? What makes a fire so pleasant is, I think, that it 
is a live thing in a dead room. 

ANTI-3IELANCH0L Y. 

Never give way to melancholy ; resist it steadily, for the habit 
will encroach. I once gave a lady two-and-twenty receipts 
against melancholy : one was a bright fire ; another, to remember 
all the pleasant things said to and of her ; another, to keep a 
box of sugar-plums on the chimney-piece, and a kettle simmer- 
ing on the hob. 

THE PASSIONS. 

The passions are in morals, what motion is in physics : they 
create, preserve, and animate ; and without them, all would be 
silence and death. Avarice guides men across the deserts of the 
ocean ; pride covers the earth with trophies, and mausoleums, 
and pyramids ; love turns men from their savage rudeness ; ambi- 
tion shakes the very foundations of kingdoms. By the love of 
glory, weak nations swell into magnitude and strength. What- 
ever there is of terrible, whatever there is of beautiful in human 
events, all that shakes the soul to and fro, and is remembered 
while thought and flesh cling together, — all these have their origin 
from the passions. As it is only in storms, and when the coming 
w^aters are driven up into the air, that we catch a sight of the 
depths of the sea, it is only in the season of perturbation that we 
have a glimpse of the real internal nature of man. It is then 
only that the might of these eruptions, shaking his frame, dissi- 
pates all the feeble coverings of opinion, and rends in pieces that 
cobweb veil with which fashion hides the feelings of the heart. 
It is then only that Nature speaks her genuine feelings ; and, as 
at the last night of Troy, when A^euus illumined the darkness, 
^neas saw the gods themselves at work, so may we, when the 
b4aze of passion is flung upon man's nature, mark in him the 
signs of a celestial origin, and tremble at the invisible agents of 
God! 



SYDNEY SMITH. 367 



AMERICAN FREEBO^r— ENGLISH RESTRICTION. 

Though America is a confederation of republics, they are in 
many eases much more amalgamated than the various parts of 
Great Britain. If a citizen of the United States can make a 
shoe, he is at liberty to make a shoe anywhere between Lake 
Ontario and New Orleans : he may sole on the Mississippi, heel 
on the Missouri, measure Mr. Birkbeck on the Little Wabash, or 
take (which our best politicians do not find an easy matter) 
the length of Mr. Monroe's foot on the banks of the Potomac. 
But wo to the cobbler who, having made Hessian boots for the 
Alderman of Newcastle, should venture to invest with these 
coriaceous integuments the leg of a liege subject at York. A 
yellow ant in a nest of red ants — a butcher's dog in a fox-kennel 
— a mouse in a bee-hive — all feel the effects of untimely intrusion; 
but far preferable their fate to that of the misguided artisan 
who, misled by sixpenny histories of England, and conceiving 
his country to have been united at the Heptarchy, goes forth 
from his native town to stitch freely within the sea-girt limits of 
Albion. Him the mayor, him the alderman, him the recorder, 
him the quarter sessions, would worry. Him the justices before 
trial would long to get into the treadmill, and w^ould much 
lament that, by a recent act, they could not do so, even with the 
intruding tradesman's consent; but the moment he was tried, 
they would push him in with redoubled energy, and leave him to 
tread himself into a conviction of the barbarous institutions of 
his corporation-divided country. 

In a speech delivered in Taunton, in 1831, he thus ridicules the attempt of 
the Lords to stop the 

• PROGRESS OF REFORM. 

I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the lords 
to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the 
great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent 
Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824 there 
set in a great flood upon that town — the tide rose to an incredible 
height — the waves rushed in upon the houses, and every thing 
was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime 
and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, 
was seen at the door of her house wdth mop and pattens, trun- 
dling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously 
pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. 
Mrs. Partington's spirit was up ; but I need not tell you that the 
contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Parting- 
ton. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle ; but she should 
not have meddled with a temjDest. 



868 >S YDNE Y SMITH. 

WITTY SA YINGS. 

The following are a few among the thousand good things of this gifted man. 

Definition of the Popish Eitual. — " Posture and imposture, flexions and 
genuflexions, bowing to the right, curtseying to the left, and an immense 
amount of man-millinery." 

What every Man can do. — " Every man fancies he can do three things : 
farm a small property, drive a gig, and write an article for a lie view." 

A Great Talker. — Of a great talker, he once said, "It would improve him if 
he now and then had a few flashes of silence." 

Dean of the Faculty. — One of the chief titles of distinction in the Scotch 
law is, ^^ The Dean of the Faculty;" and when Sydney Smith, Dean of St. 
Paul's, first met in company a gentleman hearing that title, he assumed a me- 
rential expression in looking at him, and said, "A most surprising title; 
for in England the deans have no faculties." 

Marrying a Big Woman. — Some one mentioned that a young Scotchman was 
about to marry an Irish widow double his age, and of considerable dimensiom: 
— "Going to marry her!" he exclaimed, bursting out laughing; "going 
to marry her ! impossible ! you mean a part of her ; he could not marry 
her all himself. It would be a case, not of bigamy, but triganiy ; the 
neighborhood or the magistrates should interfere. There is enough of 
her to furnish wives for a whole parish. One man marry her ! it is mon- 
strous. You might people a colony with her ; or give an assembly with 
her ; or perhaps take your morning's walk round her, always provided 
there were frequent resting-places, and you were in rude health. I once 
was rash enough to try walking round her before breakfast, but only got 
half-way, and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the Eiot Act 
and disperse her ; in short, you might do any thing with her but mgirry 
her." 

The Puseyites. — In a letter to Lady Ashburton, he says, "I wish you had 
witnessed, the other day at St. Paul's, my incredible boldness in attacking 
the Puseyites. I told them that they made the Christian religion a 
religion of postures and ceremonies, of circumflexions and genuflexions, 
of garments and vestures, of ostentation and parade ; that they took up 
tithe of mint and cummin, and neglected the weightier matters of the 
law, — justice, mercy, and the duties of life, and so forth." 

Daniel Webster. — " Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine 
in trowsers." 

Apostolical Succession. — He once said, " The Bishop of is so like 

Judas, that I now firmly believe in the apostolical succession." 

Canvas-back Ducks. — " I fully intended going to America ; but my parish- 
ioners held a meeting, and came to a resolution that they could not trust 
me with the canvas-back ducks ; and I felt they were right, so gave up 
the project." 

Bogers, the Poet. — "How is Eogers?" "He is not very well." "Why, 
what is the matter?" "Oh, don't you know he has produced a couplet? 
When our friend is delivered of a couplet, with infinite labor and pain, 
he takes to his bed, has straw laid down, the knocker tied up, expects his 
friends to call and make inquiries, and the answer at the door invariably 
is, ' Mr. Eogers and his little couplet are as well as can be expected.' 
When he produces an Alexandrine, he keeps his bed a day longer." 



CHALMERS, . 369 



THOMAS CHALMERS, 1780-18 J^7. 

Thomas Chalmers, the distinguished Scottish divine, was born at An- 
atruther, in Fifeshire, on the 17th of March, 1780. In November, 1791, he 
was enrolled at the University of St. Andrew's, where he pi'osecuted his 
literary and theological studies. Two or three years after leaving the 
university, he obtained the church of Kilmany, in his native county. Here 
he continued his scientific studies; and, in addition to his parochial labors, 
he lectured in the different towns on chemistry and other subjects, Avrote 
many pamphlets on the topics of the day, and contributed the article Chris- 
tianity to the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, edited by Sir David Brewster. This 
was afterwards published separately, under the title of Evidences of the 
Christian Revelation. 

In 1814 he removed to the new church of St. John's in Glasgow, and, while 
there, rose to be the greatest preacher of the day, — his fame extending not 
only over Great Britain, but throughout all Europe and America; and no visit 
to the country was deemed by any one complete unless he had heard Chal- 
mers preach. But he was not content with his distinguished rank in theo- 
logy; for in 1817. he entered the scientific arena, and published his celebrated 
Discourses on Astronomy. In 1818 appeared his Covimercial Discourses ; in 1819, 
his Occasional Discourses in the Tron Church and St. John's Church; and in 1821, 
his Civic and Christian Economy of Large Towns. 

So far was he from confining his labors to his j)arochial duties, that he felt 
it his duty to aid every good cause designed to elevate man. His greatest 
triumph was in the management of the pauperism of his district of Glasgow. 
It had thitherto cost about £1400 per annum. Dr. Chalmers proposed that his 
kirk-session should relieve the city of the collection and expenditure of the 
whole. The proposal was accepted; and immediately, through his deacons 
(each of whom could carefully explore his own small district), a thorough 
investigation was instituted into the circumstances of every pauper. Frauds 
almost innumerable were detected; lines were drawn between the deserving 
and the undeserving poor; the idle, the dissolute, and the drunken were often 
reclaimed; while it was frequently found that a little friendly advice was all 
that was needed to prevent the honest and industrious from sinking into 
destitution. In short, the scheme turned out to be more a contrivance to 
prevent poverty than to relieve it, and the annual cost of the Glasgow pau- 
perism was reduced from £1400 to £280. 

After laboring for some years in Glasgow, he was appointed, in 1824, to the 
professorship of moral philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's. His 
arrival there gave an impulse to that ancient seminary, which brought back 
much of the glory of its former days. The next year he was invited to take 
a chair in the then projected London University, but declined. During the 
period of his settlement at St. Andrew's, he published his works On Church 
and College Endowments, on Political Economy, his Bridgeivater Treatise, and his 
Lectures on the Romans. His published works form twenty-five volumes, and 
they have been widely circulated. In addition to these, he has made many 
and important contributions to periodical literature. 

In 1828 he was removed to the chair of theology in the University of Edin- 
burgh, the highest academical distinction which could be conferred; and 



370 CHALMERS. 



yearj 



here, undisturbed by any change, he prosecuted his labors for many 
and concentrated upon himself a deeper interest than any other clergyman 
of the religious world either in Great Britain or America. Then came the 
memorable year 1843, when a very large and influential number of the clergy 
and their congregations seceded from the Established Church of Scotland, in 
defence of their right to have pastors of their own choice, and not such as 
dukes and lords might thrust upon them at pleasure. Dr. Chalmers led thet 
seceding party, and, consequently, resigned his professorship in the uni- 
versity, — a noble instance of the sacrifice of worldly advantage for the cause 
of truth. 

Few scholars had accumulated so many academic honors as Dr. Chalmers, 
lie received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Oxford, and was 
elected a corresponding member of the Royal Institute of France, — honors 
never before awarded to a Presbyterian divine, and seldom to a Scotsman. 
In fine, while living, he received all the homage and respect usually accorded 
to great men when dead, and this mainly because, while living, he was a 
good man as well as a great man. With him religion was not a mere theory 
on which he could expatiate with a wondrous grasp of intellect, illustrate with 
the most vivid imagination, and set before an audience in all the perspicuity 
and clearness that a complete mastery of his subject could accomplish. It 
was a living faith, that mingled with all his thoughts, imparted a tone to his 
language, and moulded his actions; it was realized in his whole course of 
conduct. His attainments in science, his genius, his life, seemed devoted to 
one end, — to raise his country by the lever of religion. 

Dr. Chalmers retired to rest on the evening of Sunday, May 30, 1847, ap- 
parently in perfect health, and died calmly during the night, the bed- 
clothes being found undisturbed about his person. The news of his death 
caused a profound sensation througliout Great Britain and America; for Itj 
was felt that one of the brightest lights in the literary and religious worl^l 
had gone out.i 



COMPARATIVE INSIGNIFICANCE OF THIS WOULD. 

Though the earth were to be burned up, though the trumpet 
of its dissolution were sounded, though yon sky were to pass 
away as a scroll, and every visible glory which the finger of the 
Divinity has inscribed on it were extinguished forever, — an event 
so awful to us and to every world in our vicinity, by which so 
many suns would be extinguished and so many varied scenes of 
life and population would rush into forgetfulness, — what is it in the 
high scale of the Almighty's workmanship ? A mere shred, which, 
though scattered into nothing, would leave the universe of God 
one entire scene of greatness and majesty. Though the earth 
and the heavens were to disappear, there are other worlds which 
roll afar ; the light of other suns shines upon them ; and the sky 



1 Read Edinhurgh Eevieio, Ivii. 52; Gentle- \ 1847, pp. 597, 603, and 887; also, Life, by Rev. 
man's Magazine, June, 1845, February, 1850, William Hauna, two volumes, 
and October, 1850: also, Londan Athenseum, 



CHALMERS. 371 

which mantles them is garnished with other stars. Is it pre- 
sumption to say that the moral world extends to these distant 
and unknown regions ? that they are occupied with people ? that 
the charities of home and of neighborhood flourish there? that 
the praises of God are there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced 
in? that there piety has its temples and its offerings, and the 
richness of the Divine attributes is there felt and admired by 
intelligent w^orshippers ? 

And what is this world in the immensity w^hich teems with 
them? and w^hat are they who occupy it? The universe at large 
would suffer as little in its splendor and variety by the de- 
struction of our planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude 
of a forest w^ould suffer by the fall of a single leaf. The leaf 
quivers on the branch which supports it. It lies at the mercy 
of the slightest accident. A breath of wand tears it from its 
stem, and it lights on the stream of water Avhich passes under- 
neath. In a moment of time, the life, which we know by the 
microscope it teems with, is extinguished; and an occurrence so 
insignificant in the eye of man, and in the scale of his ob- 
servation, carries in it, to the myriads which people this little 
leaf, an event as terrible and as decisive as the destruction of a 
world. 

Now, on the grand scale of the universe, we, the occupiers of 
this ball, which performs its little round among the suns and the 
systems wdiich astronomy has unfolded, — w^e may feel the same 
Uttleness and the same insecurity. We differ from the leaf only 
in this circumstance, that it would require the oj^eration of 
greater elements to destroy us. But these elements exist. The 
fire which rages within may lift its devouring energy to the 
surface of our planet, and transform it into one wide and wasting 
volcano. The sudden formation of elastic matter in the bowels 
of the earth — and it lies within the agency of known substances 
to accomplish this — may explode it into fragments. The ex- 
halation of noxious air from below may impart a virulence to 
the air that is around us ; it may affect the delicate proportion of 
its ingredients ; and the whole of animated nature may wither and 
die under the malignity of a tainted atmosphere. A blazing 
comet may cross this fated planet in its orbit, and realize all the 
terrors which superstition has conceived of it. We cannot anti- 
cipate with precision the consequences of an event wdiich every 
astronomer must know to lie within the limits of chance and 
probability. It may hurry our globe tow-ards the sun, — or drag 
it to the outer regions of the planetary system, — or give it a new 
axis of revolution, — and the effect, which I shall simply an- 
nounce, without explaining it, would be to change the place of 
the ocean, and bring another mighty flood upon our islands and 
continents. 



372 CHALMERS. 

These are accidents wliich may happen m a single instant of 
time, and against which nothing known in the present system of 
things provides us with any security. They might not annihilate 
the earth, but they would unpeople it ; and we, who tread its 
surface with such firm and assured footstejDS, are at the mercy of ^ 
devouring elements, which, if let loose upon us by the hand of' 
the Almighty, would spread solitude, and silence, and death over 
the dominions of the world. 

Now, it is this littleness and this insecurity which make the 
protection of the Almighty so dear to us, and bring with such 
emphasis to every pious bosom the holy lessons of humility and j 
gratitude. The God who sitteth above, and presides in high | 
authority over all worlds, is mindful of man; and, though at this 
moment his energy is felt in the remotest provinces of creation, 
we may feel the same security in his providence as if we were the 
objects of his undivided care. 

It is not for us to bring our minds up to this mysterious 
agency. But such is the incomprehensible fact, that the same 
Being, whose eye is abroad over the Avhole universe, gives vege- 
tation to every blade of grass, and motion to every particle of 
blood which circulates through the veins of the minutest animal ; 
that, though his mind takes into its comprehensive grasp im- 
mensity and all its wonders, I am as much known to him as if I 
were the single object of his attention ; that he marks all my 
thoughts ; that he gives birth to every feeling and every move- 
ment within me ; and that, with an exercise of power which I 
can neither describe nor comprehend, the same God who sits in 
the highest heaven, and reigns over the glories of the firmament, 
is at my right hand, to give me every breath wdiich I draw and 
every comfort which I enjoy. 

THE TELESCOPE AND THE MICROSCOPE. 

About the time of the invention of the telescope, another in- 
strument was formed, which laid open a scene no less wonderful, 
nor less rewarding the inquisitive spirit of man. This was the 
microscope. The one led me to see a system in every star ; the 
other leads me to see a world in every atom. The one taught 
me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people 
and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of 
immensity ; the other teaches me that every grain of sand may 
harbor within it the tribes and the families of a busy population. 
The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon ; 
the other redeems it from all its insignificance, for it tells me that 
in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, 
and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with 
life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The 



CHALMERS. 373 

one has suggested to me that, beyond and above all that is 
visible to man, there may lie fields of creation which sweep im- 
measurably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand 
to the remotest scenes of the universe ; the other suggests to me 
that, within and beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye 
of man has been able to explore, there may lie a region of in- 
visibles, and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain 
which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre 
of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe within 
the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the 
microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for 
the exercise of all his attributes, where he can raise another 
mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the 
evidences of his glory. 

THE BARBARITIES OF WAR. 

The first great obstacle to the extinction of war is the way in 
which the heart of man is carried off from its barbarities and its 
horrors by the splendor of its deceitful accompaniments. There 
is a feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock of armies, 
just as there is in contemplating the devouring energy of a 
tempest ; and this so elevates and engrosses the whole man that 
his eye is blind to the tears of bereaved parents, and his ear is 
deaf to the piteous moan of the dying and the shriek of their 
desolated families. There is a gracefulness in the picture of a 
youthful warrior, burning for distinction on the field, and lured 
by this generous aspiration to the deepest of the animated throng, 
where, in the fell work of death, the opposing sons of valor 
struggle for a remembrance and a name ; and this side of the 
picture is so much the exclusive object of our regard as to dis- 
guise from our view the mangled carcases of the fallen, and the 
writhing agonies of the hundreds and the hundreds more who 
have been laid on the cold ground, where they are left to languish 
and to die. There no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep 
over them. There no gentle hand is present to ease the dying 
posture, or bind up the Avounds which, in the maddening fury of 
the combat, have been given and received by the children of one 
common Father. There death spreads its pale ensigns over every 
countenance, and when night comes on, and darkness around 
them, how many a despairing wretch must take up with the 
bloody field as the untended bed of his last sufferings, without 
one friend to bear the message of tenderness to his distant home, 
without one companion to close his eyn ! 

I avow it. On every side of me I see causes at work which go 
to spread a most delusive coloring over Avar, and to remove its 
shocking barbarities to the background of our contemplations 

32 



374 CHALMERS. 

altogether. I see it in the history, which tells me of the superb 
appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their successive 
charges. I see it in the poetry, which lends the magic of its 
numbers to the narrative of blood, and transports its many 
admirers, as by its images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes 
of chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments over a scene 
of legalized slaughter. I see it in the music, which represents 
the progress of the battle ; and where, after being inspired by 
the trumpet-notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tender- 
ness of a drawing-room are seen to bend over the sentimental 
entertainment; nor do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to 
interrupt the death-tones of the thickening contest, and the 
moans of the wounded men as they fade away upon the ear and 
sink into lifeless silence. All, all goes to prove what strange and 
half-sighted creatures we are. AVere it not so, war could never 
have been seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hate- 
fulness ; and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Chris- 
tian sentiment upon earth to arrest the strong current of its 
popular and prevailing partiality for war. Then only will an 
imperious sense of duty lay the check of severe principle on all 
the subordinate tastes and faculties of our nature. Then will 
glory be reduced to its right estimate, and the wakeful benevo- 
lence of the gosjDcl, chasing away every spell, will be turned by 
the treachery of no delusion whatever from its sublime enter- 
prises for the good of the species. Then the reign of truth and 
quietness Avill be ushered into the world, and war, cruel, atrocious, 
unrelenting war, will be stripped of its many and its bewildering 
fascinations. 

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 

It was not a temporary character which the Lord Jesus assumed. 
The human kindness, and the human expression which makes it 
intelligible to us, remained with him till his latest hour ; tbey 
survived his resurrection, and he has carried them along with 
him to the mysterious place which he now occupies. How do I 
know all this? I know it from his history; I hear it in the 
parting words to his mother from the cross ; I see it in his 
unaltered form "sAen he rose triumphant from the grave ; I per- 
ceive it in his tenderness for the scruples of the unbelieving 
Thomas ; and I am given to understand that as his body retained 
the impression of his OAvn sufferings, so his mind retains a sym- 
pathy for ours, as warm and gracious and endearing as ever. 
We have a Priest on high, who is touched with a fellow-feeling 
of our infirmities. My souk unable to support itself in its aerial 
flight among the spirits oPthe invisible, now reposes on Christ, 
who stands revealed to my conceptions in the figure, the counte- 
nance, the heart, the sympathies, of a man. He has entered 



HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 375 

within that veil which hung over the glories of the Eternal, and 
the mysterious inaccessible throne of God is divested of all its 
terrors, when I think that a Friend who bears the form of the 
species, and knows its infirmities, is there to plead for me. 



AFFLICTION. 

There is a certain mellowness which affliction sheds upon the 
character ; a softening that it effects of all the rougher and more 
repulsive asperities of our nature ; a delicacy of temperament 
into which it often melts and refines the most ungainly spirit. 
It is not the pride of aspiring talent that we carry to heaven 
with us ; it is not the lustre of a superiority which dazzles and 
commands, that we bear with us there. It is not the eminence 
of any public distinction, or the fame of lofty and successful 
enterprises ; and should these give undue confidence to man, or 
throw an aspect of conscious and complacent energy over him, 
he wears not yet the complexion of paradise ; and should God 
select him as His own. He will send some special affliction that 
may chas-ten him out of all which is uncongenial with the place 
of blessedness, and at length reduce him to its unmingled love 
and its adoring humility. * * * Xhe character is purified 
by the simple process of passing through the fire. " And when 
He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." 



HARTLEY COLERIDGE, 1796-184.9. 

Hartley Coleridge, the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was born at 
Clevedon, a small village near Bristol, in 1796. Though he grew up to be an 
engaging child, his personal appearance, independent of his shortness of 
stature, was quite singular; and while at school he seldom played with his 
school-fellows. Hence he was much alone, passing his time in reading, walk- 
ing, dreaming to himself, or talking his dreams to others. Such were his pecu- 
liarities, that he was educated not so much by a regular course of study as by 
desultory reading, and by the living voice of his father, Southey, Wordsworth, 
Lloyd, Wilson, and De Quincey. He, however, entered Oriel College, Oxford, 
and passed through the usual course of studies there with credit, though not 
with high academic distinction, and received his degree in 1821. He then 
went to London, where he spent about two years with some of his father's per- 
sonal friends, writing, from time to time, sonnets and small pieces for the Lon- 
don Magazine. 

In 1823 he went to Ambleside, near Lake Windermere, and opened a school 
for boys. But for the educational profession — a profession that requires, to 
insure success in it, the union of so many high qualifications both of head and 
heart, as well as of personal habits and manners — he was not at all suited. 



376 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 

One by one his scholars left him, and in four or five years he abandoned hiai 
school, and removed to Grasmere. Here he supported himself mostly by his' 
pen, writing for Blackwood's Magazine, — his contributions to this periodical' 
forming a part of the general collection of his essays. He had now acquired a' 
considerable literary reputation, and he entered into an engagement to furnish 
matter for a biographical work, to be published at Leeds, on the Worthies of • 
Yorkshire and Lancashire. The Worthies consisted of thirteen lives, as pub- 
lished in a collected form, under the title of Biographia Borealis, and imme- 
diately obtained, and continues to enjoy, considerable reputation. 

In the year 183-4 he lost his father, and three years after, his kind hostesB, 
Mrs. Fleming, with whom he had boarded at Grasmere for a long period. Some 
anxiety was now entertained about his future residence, — so ill calculated was he 
to make his own way in this busy, selfish world. But he had not to change 
his abode; the house was taken by a young farmer and his wife, William and 
Eleanor Richardson, with whom he spent the remainder of his days. For 
twelve years this worthy couple watched over him with respectful solicitude, 
and attended him with aflfectionate devotion during his last sickness. On the 
26th of December, 184:8, he was seized with a severe attack of bronchitis, audi 
on Saturday, the 6th of January, 1849, he was at rest.* 

As a poet, Hartley Coleridge holds a more than respectable rank. Some of i 
his pieces are exquisitely beautiful, and there are not many sonnets in the laiii*j 
guage more highly finished than his: in these, indeed, his chief strength lies.! 
His prose works are full of pleasing and instructive suggestions, communicated! 
in a pure English style, frequently commended by lustre of imagery andj 
beauty of thought. 

NIGHT. 

The crackling embers on tlic hearth are dead ; 

The indoor note of industry is still ; 

The latch is fast ; upon the window-sill 
The small birds wait not for their daily bread ; 
The voiceless tiowers — how quietly they shed 

Their nightly odors ; — and tlie liousehold rill 

Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill 
The vacant expectation, and the dread 
Of listening night. And haply now she sleeps; 

For all the garrulous noises of the air 
Are husli'd in peace ; the soft dew silent weeps, 

Like hopeless lovers for a maid so fair : — 

Oh that I were tlie happy dream that creeps 

r To her soft heart, to find my image there ! 

A VISION. :i| 

I saw thee in the beauty of tliy spring, 

And then 1 thought how blest the man shall be 

That shall persuade thy maiden modesty f^ 

To hearken to his fond soliciting. -ft 

1 Read Poems by Hartley Coleridge, with a Me- I By " Marginalia" is meant, remarks made upon 
moir of his Life, by his Brother, \\\o\o\\\mcs; the margin, or in a note-book, upon books 
and Essays and Maryinulia, in two volumes. | read. 



HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 377 

Tliou art so fair, so exquisite a thing, 

I tliouglit the very dust on which thy feet 

Had left their mark, exhaled a scent more sweet 

Than honey-dew dropt from an angel's wing. 

I see thee now a matron and a mother. 
And I, alas ! am old before my day. 

Both to myself and thee I owe another, — 
A holier passion, a devouter lay. 

Each spark of earthly fire I now must smother, 
And wish for naught for which I dare not pray. 

PR A YER. 

Be not afraid to pray — to pray is right. 

Pray, if thou canst, with hope ; but ever pray. 

Though hope be weak, or sick witli long delay ; 
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light. 
Far is the time, remote from human sight. 

When war and discord on the earth shall cease : 

Yet every jirayer for universal peace 
Avails the blessed time to expedite. 
Whate'er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven, 

Though it be what thou canst not hope to see: 
Pray to be perfect, though material leaven 

Forbid the spirit so on earth to be ; 
But if for any wish tliou darest not pray, 
•^ Then pray to God to cast that wish away. 

PINS. 

How many occasions of instruction do we daily omit, or per- 
vert to the worst purposes! How seldom are we aware that 
every atom of the universe is a text, and every article of our 
household a homily ! Few out of the immense female population 
of these realms, but in some way are beholden to pins ; and yet 
how few — how very few — derive any advantage from them beyond 
a temporary concinnity of garments, the support of an apron, or 
the adhesion of a neckerchief; they stick them in at morning, 
and pull them out at night, daily, for years, without enlargement 
of intellect or melioration of morals. Yet there is not a pin in 
a tailor's arm, not one that contributes to the annual groat of a 
miser, but might teach the wise of the world a lesson. Let us 
divide it into matter and form, and we shall perceive that it is 
the form alone that constitutes it a pin. Time was when it 
slumbered in the chaos of brazen wire, amid the multitude of 
concentric circles, cycles, and epicycles. Time was, too, when 
that wire was molten in the furnace, when the solid brass became 
as water, and rushed from its ore with a glowing rapidity. When 
this took place we know not ; what strange mutations the metals 
may have undergone we cannot conjecture. It may have shone 
on the breast of Achilles, or ejected the spirit of Hector. Who 
knows but it may have partaken of the sacredness of Solomon's 

32* 



378 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 

layers, or have gleamed destruction in the mirror of Archi- 
modes ? 

From form, then, is derived disgrace or dignity, of which the 
poor passive matter is but the involuntary recipient ; yet forms 
are all fleeting, changeable creatures of time and circumstance, 
will and fancy : there is nothing that abides but a brute inert 
mass, and even that has no existence at any time but in the form 
which then it bears. 

Just like this pin is man. Once he was, while yet he was not, 
even in the earth, from whence the fiery spirit which pervades all 
nature, and contains in itself the forms and living principles of 
all things, summoned him to life and consciousness. How various 
his subsequent fates ! — how high his exaltation ! — how sacred his 
ofiices ! — how brilliant his genius ! — how terrible his valor ! — yet 
still the poor human animal is the same clod of earth or the same 
mass of bullion that is sown by the seeds that float in the atmos- 
phere of circumstance, and stamped by the dies of education and 
example. See him in the decline, in the super-civilization of 
social life. He is sunk to a pin. His sole solidity is brazen im- 
pudence; his outside mercurial glitter, a counterfeit polish, as 
deleterious as it is attractive, composed of changeable fashions 
that glide away like quicksilver, and, like quicksilver, are excel- 
lent to denote the changes of the seasons. 

HA3ILET— OPHELIA. 

Hamlet loved Ophelia in his happy youth, when all his thoughts 
were fair and sweet as she. But his lather's death, his mother's 
frailty, have wrought sad alteration in his soul, and made the 
very form of woman fearful and suspected. His best aftections > 
are blighted, and Ophelia's love — that young and tender flower 
— escapes not the general infection. Seemed not his mother ' 
kind, faithful, innocent? And was she not married to his uncle? 
But after the dread intervicAV, the fatal injunction, he is a man 
among Avhose thoughts and purposes love cannot abide. He is a 
being severed from human hopes and joys, — vowed and dedicated 
to other work than courtship and dalliance. The spirit that 
ordained him an avenger forbad him to be a lover. Yet, with 
an inconstancy as unnatural as it is unreasonable, he clings to 
what he has renounced, and sorely feels the reluctant repulse 
which Ophelia's obedience presents to his lingering addresses. 
Lovers, even if they have seen no ghosts, and have no uncles to 
slay, when circumstances oblige them to discontinue their suit, 
can ill endure to be anticipated in the breach. It is a sorrow 
that cannot bear the slightest show of unkindness. Hamlet, 
moreover, though a tardy, is an impatient nature, that would 
feel uneasy under the common process of maidenly delay. Thus 



BARTON. 



379 



perplexed and stung, he rushes into Ophelia's chamber, and, in 
amazed silence, makes her the confidante of his grief and dis- 
traction, the cause of which she must not know. No wonder she 
concludes that he is mad for her love, and enters readily into 
what to her appears an innocent scheme to induce him to lighten 
his overcharged bosom and ask of her the peace which unasked 
she may not offer. She steals upon his solitude, while, weary of 
his unexecuted task, he argues with himself the expediency of 
suicide. Surprised as with a sudden light, his first words are 
courteous and tender, till he begins to suspect that she too is set 
on to pluck out the heart of his mystery ; and then, actually 
maddened by his self-imposed necessity of personating madness, 
he discharges upon her the bitterness of blasted love, the agony 
of a lover's anger, as if determined to extinguish in himself the 
last feeling that harmonized not with his fell purpose of revenge- 
ful justice. To me, this is the most terrifically afiecting scene in 
Shakspeare. Neither Lear nor Othello are plunged so deep in 
the gulf of misery. 



i 



BERNARD 



BARTON, 178J^-18J^9. 



Bernard Barton, the celebrated Quaker poet, was born near London, in 1784, 
and in 1806 removed to "Woodbridge, where he shortly afterwards married, and 
"Was left a widower at the birth of his only child. In 1810 he entered as clerk 
in the banking-house of the Messrs. Alexander, where he officiated almost to 
the day of his death.^ There is very little of incident in his private life. He 
had for some time previous to his death been afflicted with disease of the heart. 
On the day of his death he appeared as well as usual,- but, soon after going 
into his chamber at night, he rang the bell for his servant, who, on entering 
the room, found him in an easy-chair, panting for breath; and his medical 
attendant arrived only to see him breathe his last, on the 19th of February, 
1849. 

Bernard Barton is known to the world as the author of much pleasing, 
amiable, and pious poetry, animated by fine feeling and fancy, and delighting 



1 While acting as clerk at Woodbridge, in 
the employ of the Messrs. Alexander, he wrote 
to Charles Lamb, to ask him if he should give 
up his situation at the desk and depend upon 
his pen for support. To this Lamb replies in 
the following decided tones: — "January 9, 
1S23. — Throw yourself on the world without 
any rational plan of support beyond what the 
chance employ of booksellers would afford 
you!!! Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, 
from the steep Tarpeian rock, slap-dash head- 
long upon iron spikes. If you had but five 
consolatory minutes between the desk and 
the bed, make much of them, rather than 
turn slave to the booksellers. They are Turks 
and Tartars when they have poor authors at 



their beck. Hitherto you have been at arm's 
length from them. Come not within their 
grasp. You know not what a dishonest set 
these booksellers are. Oh, you know not — 
may you never know! — the miseries of sub- 
sisting by authorship. 'Tis a pretty appendage 
to a situation like yours or mine ; but a slaverj' 
worse than all slavery to be a bookseller's de- 
pendent; — to drudge your brain for pots of ale 
and breasts of mutton; to change your free 
thoughts and voluntary numbers for ungra- 
cious task-work. Keep to your bank, and 
your bank will keep you. &c." Severe as 
these strictures are, and true as they may be 
in the main, yet, I am happy to say, there 
have been and are some noble exceptious. 



380 BARTON. 

in subjects of a domestic and moral character. He sang of what he loved, — the 
domestic virtues in man, and the quiet pastoral scenes in nature ; and no one 
can read his poetry withovit feeling it to be the production of one of a chastened 
imagination, pure moral feeling, and who sympathized with all that tends to 
elevate and bless man. His first volume of poetry was published in 1811, and 
he continued to write till near the close of his life, his poems filling seven or 
eight volumes. His Household Verses — a collection of fugitive pieces, pub- 
lished in 1845 — contains, perhaps, more of his personal feelings than any pre- 
vious publication; but much of his poetry remains unpublished in the hands 
of his friends. A few years before his death he received a pension of one 
hundred pounds, conferred upon him by the queen, during the premiership 
of Sir Robert Peel. 

To those of his own neighborhood, Barton was known as a most amiable, 
genial, charitable man, — of pure, unaffected piety; the good neighbor, — the 
cheerful companion, — the welcome guest, — the hospitable host. Whether at 
his official place in the bank, or in the domestic circle, he was the same plea- 
sant man, and had the same manners to all; always equally frank, genial, and 
communicative : and, as he was charitable towards all, so he was beloved by 
all, of whatever creed, party, or condition in life.^ 

SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. \ 

i 

Though glorious, O God ! must thy temple have been, i 

On the day of its first dedication, 
When the cherubim's wings widely waving were seen, 

On high, o'er the ark's holy station ; 

"When even the chosen of Levi, though skill'd 

To minister standing before Thee, 
Retired from the cloud which the temple then fill'd, 

And thy glory made Israel adore Thee ; 

Though awfully grand was thy majesty then, 

Yet the worship thy gospel discloses. 
Less splendid in pomp to the vision of men, 

Far surpasses the ritual of Moses. 

And by whom was that ritual forever repeal'd 

But by Him, unto whom it was given 
To enter the Oi'acle, where is reveal'd, 

Not the cloud, but the brightness of heaven ? — 

Who, having once enter'd, hath sliown us the way, 

O Lord ! how to worship before Thee ; 
Not with shadowy forms of that earlier day, 

But in spirit and truth to adore Thee ! 

This, this is the worship the Saviour made known. 

When she of Samaria found Him 
By the patriarch's well sitting weary, alone, 

With the stillness of noontide around Him. 



1 Read Selections from his Poems and Letters, with a Memoir, edited \>y his daughter. Also, 
Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1849. 



BARTON. 381 

How sublime, yet how simple, the homage He tanght, 

To her who inquired by that fountain, 
If Jehovah at Solyraa's shrine would be sought, 

Or adored on Samaria's mountain. 

"Woman! believe me, the hour is near, 

When He, if ye rightly would hail Him, 
Will neither be worshipp'd exclusively here, 

Nor yet at the altar of Salem. 

"For God is a Spirit; and they who aright 

Would perform the pure worship He loveth. 
In the heart's holy temple will seek, with delight, 

That spirit the Father approveth." 



A CHRISTIAN IS THE HIGHEST STYLE OF 31 AN. 
"Homo sum, Tiumani nihil a me alienum puto!"'^ 

A noble thought ! and worthy to awake, 
!• From Rome's proud senate, in her palmy days, 

B Both for the orator's and nature's sake, 

W O'erwhelming echoes of accordant praise. 

IT "I am a man ! and therefore to my heart 

Think nothing human alien e'er can be ; 
That sense of union can enough impart 
t Of weal or woe to make it dear to me !" 

" And, truly, in such bond of brotherhood, 

To those who estimate its hidden might, 
Enough is seen, and felt, and understood. 
For human hearts to own its h allow' d right. 

But while I pay my homage to Ms soul, 

Who thus humanity could broadly scan ; 
And, looking only at their mighty whole, 

Do honor to the natural rights of man ; 

I can but feel — a Christian, by his faith. 

May humbly stand upon yet higher ground ; 

And feel to all who live by vital breath 
In a still dearer brotherhood fast bound ! 

Is he a follower of The Crucified — 

The Nazarene — who died that all might live? 

In that one bond of union is implied 

More than the Koman creed could ever give. 

That would but link, by human sympathy, 

The' noble speaker to his fellow-man ; 
But this makes known a closer unity 

Than proud philosophy had power to scan. 

1 "I am a man, and every thing that appertains to humanity I consider aa appertaining to 
me."— Terence. 



382 BARTON. 

There needs no more to knit in closest thrall, 
Beyond wliat Greek or Roman ever knew, 

Than this — " One common Saviour died for all ! 
And rose again — to prove his mission true !" 

This, of itself, has a more hallowing leaven 
Than human sympathy can e'er confer; 

Because its loftier hopes are link'd with heaven, 
And God's own word is its interpreter ! 

Then chide me not, if, yielding homage due 
Unto the noble Roman's noble thought, 

I hold the humblest Christian's happier view 
As with a higher, holier union fraught. 

Higher — as opening up a loftier line ; 

Holier — as springing from a deeper root : 
For LOVE TO God may be pronounced divine, 

When LOVE or Man becomes its genuine fruit ! 



STANZAS TO A FRIENX) ON HER 3IARRIAGE. 
Tlie blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich : and he addeth no sorrow." — Prov. x. 22. 

What can I wish thee, gentle friend. 

On this eventful day, 
W^itli being's onward course to blend, 

Thy spirit's strength and stay? 
For on this day there needs must be 
Full many an earnest wish for thee. 

Yet wishes are but idle things, 

As all of us well know ; — 
While prayers may put on angel wings, 

And higher, heavenward go ! 
Since He who condescends to care 
For ALL — still hears and answers prayer, 

But answers it as He deems best, 

Not always as we ask ; 
For deeply be this truth imprest, 

E^eii blessings icear a mask / 
And we are often blinded still 
Unto our heal good or ill ! . 

I, therefore, would not breathe for thee 

A prayer scarce understood ; 
But ratlier that thy lot may be 

What God sees best of good/ 
Good for thee, while a pilgrim here; 
Good for thee, in a happier sphere. 

Be thine the blessings which His word, 

Replete with truths sublime. 
Instructs us is to be preferr'd 

To ail the things of time; 
That blessing which true riches brings 
And addeth none of sorrow's stings ! 



BARTON. 383 



May this, my gentle friend, be thine, 
And hii=!, -who shares thy lot; 

Then — whether skies above you shine, 
Or lower — 'twill matter not; 

For God can temper joy's bright day. 

And smile grief's darkest night away. 

May He remain your rich reward, 

His presence ever near; 
In prosperous hours your hearts to guard, 

In adverse ones, to cheer; 
So shall you own, in grateful mood, 
He can make all things work for good ! 



SONNET— TO HIS WIFE. 

The butterfly, which sports on gaudy wing, 
The brawling brooklet, lost in foam and spray, 
As it goes dancing on its idle way ; 

The sunflower, in broad daylight glistening ; 

Are types of her who in the festive ring 
Lives but to bask in fashion's vain display, 
And glittering through her bright but useless day, 

" Flaunts, and goes down a disregarded thing !" 
Thy emblem, Lucy, is the busy bee, 

Whose industry for future hours provides; 

The gentle streamlet, gladding as it glides 
Unseen along; the flower which gives the lea 
Fragrance and loveliness, are types of thee, 

And of the active worth thy modest merit hides. 



TO A GRANDMOTHER. 

" Old age is dark and unlovely." — Ossian. 

Oh, say not so ! A bright old age is thine, 
Calm as the gentle light of summer eves, 
Ere twilight dim her dusky mantle weaves; 

Because to thee is given, in thy decline, 

A heart that does not thanklessly repine 

At aught of which the hand of God bereaves. 
Yet all He sends with gratitude receives; — 

May such a quiet thankful close be mine ! 
And hence thy fireside chair appears to me 

A peaceful throne, which thou wert form'd to fill ; 

Thy children, ministers who do thy will ; 

And those grandchildren, sporting round thy knee. 
Thy little subjects, looking up to thee 

As one who claims their fond allegiance still.^ 



1 Originally published in the New Monthly Magazine. 



384 MAEIA EDGE WORTH. 



TO THE FRIENDS OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY CAUSE IN 
AMERICA. 

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 

Soul-stirring text ! Proclaim it far and wide, 

Throughout the length and breadth of all your land I 
Till he who runs may read and understand 

The glorious truth in these few words implied ! 

How — where that Sjjirit most is deified, 
The fame of freedom, by its influence fann'd, 
Bidding each heart with love to all expand, 

Slavery, accurst, no longer can abide ! 

But, oh ! what heavier or more hopeless doom 

Can be a nation's or a people's lot, 

Or fling upon their fame a fouler blot, 

Withering their spirits by its chilling gloom. 
Than one which leaves for doubt too fearful room, 

That THERE the Spirit of the Lord is not ! 



MARIA EDGEWORTH, 17 67-18 J^9. 

Maria Edgeworth, daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, was born in 
Oxfordshire, England, on the 1st of January, 1767, — a valuable New Year's 
present to the literary world. Her father having succeeded to an estate in 
Ireland, the family removed thither when she was very young, and resided at 
Edgeworthtown, Longford county. She commenced her literary career in the 
beginning of the nineteenth century, — at first assisted by her father, in her 
Essay on Irish Bulls. Soon after this appeared her Castle Rackrent, the pre- 
cursor of a copious series of tales, national, moral, and fashionable, which at 
once placed her in the first class of novelists, as a shrewd observer of manners, 
a warm-hearted observer of national humors, and a resolute upholder of good 
morals in fiction. Sir Walter Scott assures us that when he began his Scottish 
novels it was with the thought of emulating Miss Edgeworth; and Sir James 
Mackintosh says, " Her extraordinary merit, both as a novelist and a woman 
of genius, consists in her having selected a class of virtues far more difficult to 
treat as the subject of fiction than others, and which had therefore been left 
by former writers to her." 

In 1804 appeared Popular Tales, in three volumes, — a "genuine display of 
nature, and a certain tone of nationality and good sense, wbich was the more 
pleasing because in a novel it was then new." In this work she was probably 
assisted by her father. In 1806 appeared ieonora, a novel, in two volumes; 
and in 1809, Tales of Fashionable Life, in three volumes. Three other volumes 
of Fashionable Tales were issued in 1812, which fully supported the reputation 
of the authoress. The number of tales in this series was three, the best of 
which, The Absentee, exposes the evils of the system of persons of fortune for- 
saking their country-seats and native vales for the frivolity, heartlessness, and 
expense of fashionable society in London. 

In 1814 Miss Edgeworth published her Patronage, in four volumes,— showing 



MARIA EDGEWORTH. 



385 



the miseries resulting from a dependence on the patronage of the great, con- 
trasted with the manly virtues arising from honest and independent exertion. 
In 1817 appeared two other tales, — Harrington, designed to counteract the 
prejudices against the Jews, and Ormond, an Irish tale. The same year she 
lost her father. So deeply did she feel this blow that for some time she sus- 
pended all literary labor. At length, in 1820, she completed a Memoir of her 
father, which he had begun. In 1822 she returned to her course of moral in- 
struction, and published Rosamond, a Sequel to Early Lessons, — a work for 
juvenile readers; and three years after, Harriet and Lucy, in four volumes, of 
a similar character. Parents' Assistant, Moi'al Tales, Helen, a novel, in three 
volumes, and other works, followed in successive years, so that she ranks as one 
of the most prolific writers in English literature of the nineteenth century. 
She died on the 21st of May, 1849. 

Few authors have commanded more attention in their day than Miss Edge- 
worth. Her tales are singularly rich in allusion and anecdote, and indicate 
intellectual mastery and cultivation of no common order. But it is as a writer 
of stories for children that she is now most known and most read. Here she 
has not been surpassed; for no one has ever more fully succeeded in capti- 
vating the fancy and attention of the young, and impressing upon them the 
most valuable lessons of industry, economy, and whatever relates to the prac- 
tical duties of life. Her other works may be neglected or forgotten, but her 
Rosamonds and her Lucys, her Waste Nots and Want Nots, her Simple Susans, &c. 
will ever be remembered, read, and prized.^ 

In Patronage, Caroline's feelings had been highly excited by the sight of a 
poor but beautiful girl who had been most cruelly betrayed. Her character is 
finely developed in the following noble sentiments, which she utters upon 

LOVE. 

" I do not believe you will ever be in love," said Kosamond. 
" I confess I should admire, or at least love you better, if you had 
more feeling," added Rosamond, hastily. 

"By what do you judge that I want feeling?" said Caroline, 
coloring deeply, and with a look and tone that expressed her 
keen sense of injustice. " What proof have I ever given you of 
my want of feeling ?" 

" No proof, that I can recollect," said Rosamond, laughing ; " no 
proof, but that you have never been in love." 

"And is it a crime never to have been in love? or is it a proof 
I am incapable of feeling, that I have never loved one who has 
proved himself utterly unworthy of my love, — against whose 
conduct my sister cannot find words sufficiently severe to express 



1 In the 20th volume of the Edinburgh Re- 
view, Lord .Jeffrey thus writes : — " The writings 
of Miss Edgeworth exhibit so singular a union 
of sober sense and inexhaustible invention, — 
80 minute a knowledge of all that distin- 
guishes manners, or touches on happiness in 
every condition of human fortune,— and so just 
an estimate both of the real sources of enjoy- 
ment, and of the illusiotis by which they are 



so often obstructed, that it cannot be thought 
wonderful that we should separate her from 
the ordinary manufacturers of novels, and 
speak of her Tales as works of more serious 
importance than much of the true history and 
solemn philosophy that comes daily under our 
inspection." Read Edinburgh Reviexv, xx. 100 ; 
xxii. 416; xxviii. 390; and li. 444; Quarterly 
Review, vii. 329; x. 301. 



33 



886 MARIA EDGEWORTH. 

her indignation? Rosamond, if I had ever given him any encou- 
ragement, if I had loved him, what would have been my misery 
at the moment you said those words !" 

"Ah! my dear, but, then, if you had been very miserable, I 
should have pitied you so much, and loved you so heartily for 
being in love," said Rosamond, still laughing. 

" O Rosamond !" continued Caroline, whose mind was now too 
highly wrought for raillery, "is love to be trifled with? No, only 
by trifling minds, or by rash characters ; by those wdio do not 
conceive its power, its danger. Recollect what we have just seen: 
A young, beautiful woman sinking into the grave with shame, — • 
deserted by her parents, — wishing her child unborn ! Do you 
remember her look of agony when we praised that child, — the 
strongest charm of nature reversed, — the strongest ties dissolved, 
— and — love brought her to this ! She is only a poor servant girl. 
But the highest and the fairest, those of the most cultivated 
understandings, of the tenderest hearts, cannot love bring them 
down to the same level, — to the same fate? And not only our 
weak sex, but over the stronger sex, and the strongest of the 
strong, and the wisest of the wise, what is — what has ever been 
the power, the delusions of that passion, which can cast a spell 
over the greatest hero, throw a blot on the brightest glory, blast 
in a moment a life of fame ! What must be the power of that 
passion, Avhich can inspire genius in the dullest and the coldest, 
waken heroism in the most timid of creatures, exalt to the highest 
point, or to the lowest degrade our nature, — the bitterest curse or 
the sweetest blessing Heaven bestows on us in this life! O sister! 
is love to be trifled with ?" 

Caroline paused, and Rosamond for some instants looked at her 
and at her mother in silence; then exclaimed, "All this from 
Caroline ! Are you not astonished, mother ?" 

" No," said Mrs. Percy ; " I was aware that this was in Caro- 
line's mind." 

"I was not," said Rosamond. "She who never spoke of love! 
I little imagined that she thought of it so highly, so seriously." 

"Yes, I do think of it seriously, — highly, may Heaven grant!" 
cried Caroline, looking fervently upwards as she spoke, with an 
illuminated countenance. "May Heaven grant that love be a 
blessing and not a curse to me ! Heaven grant that I may never, 
in any moment of selfish vanity, try to excite a passion which I 
cannot return ! Heaven grant that I never may feel the passion 
of love but for one whom I shall entirely esteem, — who shall be 
worthy to fill my whole soul! Mother!" continued Caroline, 
turning eagerly, and seizing her mother's hand, — " my guide, my 
guardian, whenever you see in me any, the slightest, inclination 
to coquetry, warn me, — as you wish to save me from that which 
I should most dread, the reproaches of my own conscience, — in 



MARIA EDGEWORTH, 387 

the first, tlie very first instance, reprove me, mother, if you can, — 
with severity. And you, my sister, my bosom friend, do not use 
your influence to soften, to open my mind to love ; but if ever 
you perceive me yielding my heart to the first tenderness of the 
passion, watch over me ; if the object be not every way worthy 
of me — my equal, my superior — oh ! as you would wish to snatch 
me from the grave, rouse me from the delusion — save me from 
disappointment, regret, remorse, which I know that I could not 
bear and live." 

IRISH BULLS. 

The difficulty of selecting from the vulgar herd of Irish bulls 
one that shall be entitled to the prize, from the united merits of 
pre-eminent absurdity and indisputable originality, is greater 
than hasty judges may imagine. Many bulls, reputed to be bred 
and born in Ireland, are of foreign extraction ; and many more, 
supposed to be unrivalled in their kind, may be matched in all 
their capital points: for instance, there is not a more celebrated 
bull than Paddy Blake's. When Paddy heard an English gentle- 
man speaking of the fine echo at the Lake of Killarney, which 
repeats the sound forty times, he very promptly observed, " Faith, 
that's nothing at all to' the echo in my father's garden, in the 
county of Galway : if you say to it, * How do you do, Paddy 
Blake ?' it will answer, ' Pretty well, I thank you, sir.' " 

Among the famous bulls recorded by the illustrious Joe Miller, 
there is one which has been continually quoted as an example of 
original Irish genius. An English gentleman was writing a 
letter in a coffee-house, and perceiving that an Irishman stationed 
behind him was taking that liberty which Hephsestion used with 
his friend Alexander, instead of putting his seal upon the lips of 
the curious impertinent, the English gentleman thought proper 
to reprove the Hibernian, if not with delicacy, at least with 
poetical justice : he concluded writing his letter in these words : — 
" I would say more, but an impertinent tall Irishman is reading 
over my shoulder every word I write." 

" You lie, you scoundrel !" said the self-convicted Hibernian. 

In the late proclamation of an Irish mayor, w^e are informed 
that certain business is to be transacted in that city " every Mon- 
day (Easter Sunday only excepted)." This seems rather an un- 
necessary exception ; but it is not an inadvertency caused by any 
hurry of business in his worship : it is deliberately copied from a 
precedent, set in England, by a baronet formerly well known in 
parliament, who, in the preamble to a bill, proposed that certain 
regulations should take place "on every Monday (Tuesday ex- 
cepted)." We fear, also, that an English mayor has been known 
to blunder. Some years ago the mayor of a capital English city 
published a proclamation and advertisement, previous to the 



388 MAEIA EDGEWORTH. 

races, " that no gentleman will be allowed to ride on the course, but 
the horses that are to run." A mayor's blundering proclamation 
is not, however, worth half so much in the eye of ridicule as a 
lord-lieutenant's. 

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn. 

A bull on the throne is worth twice as much as a bull in the 
chair. 

" By the Lord-lieutenant and Council of Ireland. 
" A proclamation. 

?|C ^ 3)C >fC 

" Whereas, the greatest economy is necessary in the consump- 
tion of all species of grain, and especially in the consumption of 
potatoes, &c. 

" Given at the Council-chamber in Dublin." 

An uninformed Irishman, hearing the Sphinx alluded to in 
company, whispered to a friend, " The Sphinx ! w^ho is that now ?" 

"A monster, man." 

" Oh, a Munster-man ; I thought he was from Connaught," re- 
plied our Irishman, determined not to seem totally unacquainted 
with the family. 

During the late rebellion in Ireland, at the military execution 
of some wretched rebel, the cord broke, and the criminal, who 
had been only half hanged, fell to the ground. The major, who 
was superintending the execution, exclaimed, "You rascal, if you 
do that again, I'll kill you as sure as you breathe." 

An Irish boy (a 'cute lad) saw a train of his companions lead 
ing their cars, loaded with kishes^ of turf, coming towards his 
father's cabin ; his father had no turf, and the question was how 
some should be obtained. To beg he was ashamed ; to dig he 
was unwilling ; but his head went to work directly. He took up 
a turf which had fallen from one of the cars the preceding day, 
and stuck it on the top of a pole near the cabin. When the cars 
were next passing, he appeared throwing turf at the mark. 
"Boys!" cried he, "which ^f ye will hit?" Each leader of the 
car, as he passed, could not forbear to fling a turf at tlie mark ; 
the turf fell at the foot of the pole, and when all the cars had 
passed, there was a heap left sufficient to reward the ingenuity 
of our little Spartan. 

The same 'cuteness which appears in youth continues and 

improves in old age. When General V was quartered in a 

small town in Ireland, he and his lady were regularly besieged, 
whenever they got into their carriage, by an old beggar-woman, 
who kept her post at the door, assailing them daily with fresh 

1 Baskets. 



MAEIA EDGEWORTH. 389 

importunities and fresh tales of distress. At last the lady's 
charity and the general's patience were nearly exhausted, but their 
petitioner's wit was still in its pristine vigor. One morning, at 
the accustomed hour, when the lady was getting into her carriage, 
the old woman began, " Agh ! my lady ; success to your lady- 
ship, and success to your honor's honor, this morning, of all days 
in the year, for sure didn't I dream last night that her ladyship 
gave me a pound of tea, and that your honor gave me a pound 
of tobacco ?" 

" But, my good woman," said the general, " do not you know 
that dreams always go by the rule of contrary ?" 

" Do they so, plase your honor ?" rejoined the old woman. 
" Then it must be your honor that will give me the tea, and her 
ladyship that will give me the tobacco." 

The general being of Sterne's opinion, that a bon-mot is always 
worth more than a pinch of snutf, gave the ingenious dreamer 
the value of her dream. 

As an instance of humor mixed with sophistry, we beg the 
reader to recollect the popular story of the Irishman who was run 
over by a troop of horse, and miraculously escaped unhurt. 

" Down upon your knees and thank God, you reprobate," said 
one of the spectators. 

"Thank God! for what? Is it for letting a troop of horse run 
over me?" 

ON PRUDENCE. 

In the education of girls, we must teach them much more 
caution than is necessary to boys ; their prudence must be more 
the result of reasoning than of experiment ; they must trust to the 
experience of others ; they cannot always have recourse to what 
ought to he; they must adapt themselves to what is. They cannot 
rectify the material mistakes in their conduct. Timidity, a cer- 
tain tardiness of decision, and reluctance to act in public situa- 
tions, are not considered as defects in a woman's character ; her 
pausing prudence does not, to a man of discernment, denote 
imbecility, but appears to him the graceful, auspicious charac- 
teristic of female virtue. There is always more probability that 
women should endanger their own happiness by precipitation, 
than by forbearance. Promptitude of choice is seldom expected 
from the female sex ; they should avail themselves of the leisure 
that is permitted to them for reflection. " Begin nothing of 
which you have not considered the end," was the piece of advice 
for which the Eastern sultan paid a purse of gold, the price set 
upon it by a sage. The monarch did not repent of his purchase. 
This maxim should be engraved upon the memory of our female 
pupils, by the repeated lessons of education. We should, even 
in trifles, avoid every circumstance which can tend to make girls 

33* 



390 MARIA EDGEWORTH. 

venturesome, — which can encourage them to trust their good 
fortune, instead of relying on their own prudence. 

EDUCATION OF FEMALES. 

It will be sufficient to profess the distinct opinion which a 
longer consideration of the subject has yet more fully confirmed, 
that it will tend to the happiness of society in general that 
women should have their understandings cultivated and enlarged 
as much as possible; that the happiness of domestic life, the 
virtues and the powders of pleasing in the female sex, the yet 
more desirable power of attaching those worthy of their love and 
esteem, will be increased by the judicious cultivation of the 
female understanding, more than by all that modern gallantry 
or ancient chivalry could devise in favor of the sex. Much pru- 
dence and ability are requisite to conduct properly a young 
woman's literary education. Her imagination must not be raised 
above the taste for necessary occupations, or the numerous small, 
but not trifling, pleasures of domestic life ; her mind must be en- 
larged, yet the delicacy of her manners must be preserved ; her 
knowledge must be various, and her powers of reasoning unawed 
by authority ; yet she must habitually feel that nice sense of pro- 
priety which is at once the guard and the charm of every femi- 
nine virtue. By early caution — unremitting, scrupulous caution 
— in the choice of the books which are put into the hands of 
girls, a mother or a preceptress may fully occupy and entertain 
her pupils, and excite in their minds a taste for propriety as well 
as a taste for literature. It cannot be necessary to add more 
than this general idea, that a mother ought to be answerable to 
her daughter's husband for the books her daughter had read, as 
well as for the company she had kept. 

ECONOM Y. 

Economy in women is an essential domestic virtue. Some 
women have a foolish love of expensive baubles, — a taste which 
a very little care, probably, in their early education might have 
prevented. We are told that when a collection of three hundred 
and fifty pounds was made for the celebrated Cuzzona, to save 
her from absolute want, she immediately laid out two hundred 
pounds of the money in the purchase of a shell-cap, which was 
then in fashion. Prudent mothers will avoid showing any ad- 
]niration of pretty trinkets before their young daughters ; and 
they will oppose the ideas of utility and durability to the mere 
caprice of fashion, which creates a taste for beauty, as it were, by 
proclamation. " Such a thing is pretty, but it is of no use ; such 
a thing is pretty, but it will soon wear out," a mother may say ; 
ftnd she should prove the truth of hor assertions to her pupils. 



HORACE SMITH. 



391 



31 us I G AS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. 

Out of the prodigious number of young women who learn music 
and drawing, for instance, how many are there who, after they 
have become mistresses of their own time, and after they have 
the choice of their own amusements, continue to practise these 
accomplishments for the pure pleasure of occupation? As soon 
as a young lady is married, does she not frequently discover that 
" she really has not leisiwe to cultivate talents which take up so 
much time" ? Does she not complain of the labor of practising 
four or five hours a day, to keep up her musical character? 
What motive has she for perseverance ? She is, perhaps, already 
tired of playing to all her acquaintance. She may really take 
pleasure in hearing good music ; but her own performance will 
not, then, please her ear so much as that of many others. She 
will prefer the more indolent pleasure of hearing the best music 
that can be heard for money at public concerts. She will then, 
of course, leave off playing, but continue very fond of music. 
How often is the labor of years thus lost forever ! 



HORACE SMITH, 1780-18 J^9. 

Horace Smith, the brother of James, and co-author with him of the famous 
Rejected Addresses,^ was born in London, in the year 1780. Besides his share 
of the Addresses, he gained some celebrity in his day by his novels and his- 
torical romances, and was a frequent contributor to the periodicals and annuals, 
and in light literature was one of the most entertaining writers of his day. 
His works in the field of fiction are — Tor Hill; Zillah, a Tale of the Holy City; 
The Midsmnmer Medley, &c., — in all, about twenty in number; but now they 
are comparatively little known, and seldom read. The Rejected Addresses, 
however, will always live. He died at Tunbridge "Wells, whither he had gone 
for his health, on the 12th of July, 1849. 



A TALE OF DRURY LANE. 

BY W. S. 
* •$«• * 

As Chaos, wliich, by heavenly doom, 
Had slept in everlasting gloom, 
Started with terror and surprise. 
When liglit first flash'd ujaon her eyes,- 



1 See the biographical sketch of James. Of 
the Rejected Addresses, Horace wrote No. 1, 
"Loyal Effusion," by W.T.F. (William Thomas 
Fitzgerald); No. 3, "An Address without a 
Phoenix," by S. T. P. (anonymous); No. 4, 
"Ciii Bono," by Lord B. (Byron); No. 6, "The 
Living Lustres," by T. M. (Moore); No. 8, 
"Drury's Dirge," by Laura Matilda (anony- 
mous) ; No. 9, " A Tale of Drury Lane," by 



W. S. (Scott); No. 10, "Johnson^s Ghost;" 
No. 11, " The Beautiful Incendiary," by Hon. 
W. S. (William Spencer) ; No. 12, " Fire and 
Ale," by M. G. L. (Matthew Gregory Lewis, 
otherwise called Monk Lewis) ; No. 15, "Archi- 
tectural Atoms," by Dr. B. (Busby) ; and No. 
21, "Punch's Apotheosis," by T. H. (Theodore 
Hook). 



392 HORACE SMITH. 

So London's sons in nightcap woke, 

In bedgown woke lier dames, 
For shouts were heard mid fire and smoke, 
And twice ten hundred voices spoke, 

'' The playhouse is in flames." 
And, lo ! where Catharine Street extends, 
A fiery tail its lustre lends 

To every window-pane : 
Blushes each spout in Martlet Court, 
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort, 
And Covent Garden kennels sport 

A bright ensanguined drain ; 
Meux's new brewhouse shows the light, 
Kowland Hill's chapel, and the height 

Where patent shot they sell : 
The Tennis Court, so fair and tall, 
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall, 
The Ticket-Porters' house of call, 
Old Bedlam, close by London Wall, 
Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal, 

And Richardson's hotel. 

Nor these alone, but far and wide 
Across red Thames's gleaming tide, 
To distant fields the blaze was borne ; 
And daisy white and hoary thorn, 
In borrow'd lustre seem'd to sham 
The rose or red Bweet Wil-li-am. 

To those who on the hills around 

Beheld the flames from Drury's mound, 
As from a lofty altar, rise, 

It seem'd that nations did conspire 

To ofier to the god of fire 
Some vast stupendous sacrifice ! 
The summon' d firemen woke at call, 
And hied them to their stations all. 
Starting from short and broken snooze. 
Each sought his ponderous hob-nail'd shoes, 
But first his worsted hosen plied. 
Plush breeches next in crimson dyed. 

His nether bulk embraced ; 
Then jacket thick of red or blue, 
Whose massy shoulder gave to view 
The badge of each respective crew. 

In tin or copper traced. 
The engines thunder'd through the street, 
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete, 
And torches glared, and clattering feet 

Along the pavement paced. * * * * 

E'en Higginbottom now was posed. 
For sadder scene was ne'er disclosed ; 
Without, within, in hideous show. 
Devouring flames resistless glow, 
And blazing rafters downward go, 
And never halloo, " Heads below !" 
Nor notice give at all ; 



HORACE SMITH. 



393 



The firemen, terrified, are slow 
To bid the pumping torrent flow, 

For fear the roof should fall. 
Back, Eobins, back ! Crump, stand aloof I 

Whitford, keep near the walls ! 
Huggins, regard your own behoof, 
For, lo ! the blazmg rocking roof 

Down, down in thunder falls ! 

An awfal pause succeeds the stroke. 
And o'er the ruins volumed smoke, 
Kolling around its pitchy shroud, 
Conceal'd them from the astonish'd crowd. 
At length the mist awhile was clear' d. 
When, lo ! amid the wreck uprear'd. 
Gradual a moving head appear' d. 

And Eagle firemen knew 
'Twas Joseph Muggins, — name revered, — 

The foreman of their crew. 
Loud shouted all in signs of woe, 
" A Muggins to the rescue, ho !" 

And pour'd the hissing tide ; 
Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain. 
And strove and struggled all in vain, 
For rallying but to fall again, 

He totter' d, sunk, and died ! 
Did none attempt before he fell 
To suc.'cor one they loved so well ? 
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire 
(His fireman's soul was all on fire) 

His brother chief to save ; 
But, ah ! his reckless generous ire 

Served but to share his grave ! 
'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams, 
Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke. 

Where Muggins broke before ; 
But sulphury stench and boiling drench, 
Destroying sight, o'erwhelm'd him quite; 

He sunk to rise no more. 
Still o'er his head, Avhile Fate he braved, 
His whizzing water-pipe he waved : 
" Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps ; 
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps; 
Why are you in such doleful dumps? 
A fireman, and afraid of bumps! 
What are they fear'd on ? fools — 'od rot 'em !" 
Were the last words of Higginbottom.^ * * 

Of the prose addresses, the following portion of that spoken by Johnson's 
Ghost, is an admirable imitation of the style of the author of the Ramhhr : — 



1 A Tale of Drury Lam, by Walter Scott, is, 
upon the whole, admirably executed, though 
the introduction is rather tame. The burning 
is described with the mighty minstrel's cha- 
racteristic love of localities. — Edinburgh Re- 



" I certainly must have written this myself,' 
said Sir Walter, pleasantly, to one of the 
authors, pointing to the description of the 
Fire, " although I forget upon what occa- 



394 HORACE SMITH. 

[Ghost of Dr. Johnson rises from trap-d.oor P.S., and Ghost of Boswell /row 
trap-door 0. P. The latter bows respectfully to the House, and ohsequiov^ly U 
the Doctor's Ghost, and retires.] 

Doctor'' s Ghost loquitur. 

That which was organized by the moral ability of one ha^ 
been executed by the physical efforts of many, and Drury Lam 
Theatre is now complete. Of that part behind the curtain 
which has not yet been destined to glow beneath the brush ol 
the varnisher, or vibrate to the hammer of the carpenter, little M 
thought by the public, and little need be said by the committee! 
Truth, however, is not to be sacriiEiced for the accommodatiorl 
of either; and he who should pronounce that our edifice has 
received its final embellishment, would be disseminating false- 
hood without incurring favor, and risking the disgrace of del 
tection without participating the advantage of success. ' 

Professions lavishly effused and parsimoniously verified an 
alike inconsistent with the precepts of innate rectitude and th( 
practice of external policy; let it not then be conjectured, that 
because we are unassuming, we are imbecile ; that forbearance is 
any indication of despondency, or humility of demerit. He thai 
is the most assured of success will make the fewest appeals tc 
favor, and where nothing is claimed that is undue, nothing thai 
is due will be withheld. A swelling opening is too often suc- 
ceeded by an insignificant conclusion. Parturient mountaim 
have, ere now, produced muscipular abortions ; and the auditoi 
who compares incipient grandeur with final vulgarity, is re- 
minded of the pious hawkers of Constantinople, who solemnly 
perambulate her streets, exclaiming, " In the name of the pro- 
phet — figs !" 

FINE BROWN STOUT. 

A brewer in a country town 

Had got a monstrous reputation ; 
No other beer but his went down. 

The hosts of the surrounding station 
Carv'd its great name upon their mugs, 

And painted it on every shutter; 

And tho' some envious folks would utter 
Hints that its flavor came from drugs, 

Others maintain'd 'twas no such matter, 
But owing to his monstrous vat. 
At least as corpulent as that 

At Heidelberg — and some said fatter. 

His foreman was a lusty Black, 

An honest fellow. 
But one who had an ugly knack 

Of tasting samples as he brew'd, 



HORACE SMITH. 395 

Till he Avas stupefied and mellow. 
One day, in his top-heavy mood, 
Having to cross the vat aforesaid 

(Just then with l)oiling beer supplied), 
O'ercome with giddiness and qualms, he 
Reel'd, fell in, and nothing more was said, 
But in his favorite liquor died, 
Like Clarence in his butt of Malmsey. 

In all directions round about 

The negro absentee was sought. 

But as no human noddle thought 
That our fat Black was now Brown Stout, 

They settled that the rogue had left 

The place for debt, or crime, or theft. 

Meanwhile the beer was, day and day, 
Drawn into casks, and sent away, 

Until the lees flow'd thick and thicker; 
When, lo ! outstretch'd upon the ground. 
Once more their missing friend they found, 

As they had often done, in liquor. 

" See," cried his moralizing master ; 

" I always knew the fellow drank hard, 
And prophesied some sad disaster. 
His fate should other tipplers strike: 
Poor Mungo ! there he wallows, like 

A toast at bottom of a tankard !" 

Next mom a publican, whose tap 

Had help'd to drain the vat so dry, 
Not having heard of the mishap. 

Came to demand a fresh supply, — 
Protesting loudly that the last 
All previous specimens surpass' d, 
Possessing a much richer gusto 
Than formerly it ever used to, 
And begging as a special favor 
Some more of the exact same flavor. 

" Zounds !" said the brewer, " that's a task 
More difficult to grant than ask. 
Most gladly would I give the smack 

Of the last beer to the ensuing; 
But where am I to find a Black 

And boil him down at every brewing?" 



ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY IN BELZONPS EXHIBITION, 

And thou hast walk'd about (how strange a story I) 
In Thebes's streets, three thousand years ago. 

When the Memnonium was in all its glory. 
And time had not begun to overthrow 

Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, 

Of which the very ruins are tremendous I 



396 HORACE SMITH. 

Speak ! for thou long enough hast acted dummy ; 

Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune ; 
Thou'rt standing on thy legs above ground, mummy I 

Revisiting the glimpses of the moon. 
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, 
But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features. 

Tell us — for doubtless thou canst recollect — 
To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame? 

Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect 

Of either pvramid that bears his name? 

Is Pompey's tillar really a misnomer? 

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer? 

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden 
By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade: 

Then say, what secret melody was hidden 

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise play'd ? 

Perhaps thou wert a priest: if so, my struggles 

Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles. 

Perchance that very hand, now pinion'd flat, 
Has hob-a-nobb'd with Pharaoh, glass to glass, 

Or dropp'd a halfpenny in Homer's hat. 
Or doff''d thine own to let Queen Dido pass, 

Or held, by Solomon's own invitation, 

A torch at the great Temple's dedication. 

I need not ask thee if that hand, when arm'd, 
Has any Roman soldier niaul'd and knuckled, 

For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalm' d, 
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled : . 

Antiquity appears to have begun 

Long after thy primeval race was run. 

Thou couldst develop, if that wither'd tongue 
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, 

How the world look'd when it was fresh and young, 
And the great deluge still had left it green ; 

Or was it then so old that history's pages 

Contain'd no record of its early ages? 

Still silent, incommunicative elf! 

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows; 
But prithee tell us something of thyself! 

Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house ; 
Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumber'd. 
What hast thou seen, — what strange adventures number'd? 

Since first thy form was in this box extended, 

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations ; 

The Roman empire has begun and ended. 

New worlds have risen, — we have lost old nations. 

And countless kings have into dust been humbled. 

Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled. 

Did thou not hear the pother o'er thy head, 
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, 



\ 



ELLIOTT. 397 

March'd armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread, 

O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis, 
And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder, 
When the gigantic Memnon fell asmider? 

If the tomb's secrets may not be confess'd, 

The nature of thy private life unfold: 
A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern breast, 

And tears adown that dusky cheek have roll'd: 
Have children climb'd those knees and kiss'd that face? 
What was thy name and station, age and race? 

Statue of flesh — immortal of tlie dead ! 

Imperishable type of evanescence ! 
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed 

And standest un decay' d within our presence. 
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning, 
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning! 

Why should this worthless tegument endm-e, 

If its undying guest be lost forever? 
Oh, let us keep the soul embalm'd and pure 

In living virtue, that, when both must sever, 
Although corruption may our frame consume, 
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom. 



EBENEZER ELLIOTT, 178 1-18 J^9. 

Ebenezer Elliott, the celebrated Corn-Law Rhymer, was born in 1781, at 
Masborough, Yorkshire, where his father was a commercial clerk in the iron- 
works, with a salary of £70 a year. He is said to have been very dull in his 
early years, and he was so oppressed with a sense of his own deficiencies com- 
pared with his bright brother Giles, that he often wept bitterly. Yet who now 
knows Giles, except as being the brother of Ebenezer ? — a lesson to parents, who 
may have a child that seems dull when young, not to despair of him. He 
determined, however, to make the best of his opportunities, and gave his leisure 
time to the reading of Milton and Shakspeare. But how much leisure he had, 
and under what great disadvantages he labored, may be gathered from the 
following account which he gives of himself: — "From my sixteenth to my 
twenty-third year I worked for my father at Masbro' as laboriously as any 
servant he had, and without wages, except an occasional shilling or two for 
pocket-money, weighing every morning all the unfinished castings as they 
were made, and afterward in their finished state, besides opening and closing 
the shop in Rotherhani when my brother happened to be ill or absent." 

Elliott entered into business at Rotherham, but was unsuccessful, and in 
1821 he removed to Sheffield, and made a second start in life as an iron-monger, 
on a capital of £100, which he borrowed. He applied the whole strength of 
his mind to his business, and was eminently successful, and, after years of hard 

34 



31)8 



ELLIOTT. 



labor, he had acquired quite a competency, and built himself a good house in 
the suburbs of Sheffield. 

His first publication was The Vernal Walk, in his seventeenth year. This 
was followed by Night, which was severely criticized by the Monthly Review 
and the Monthly Magazine, without any effect, however, to damp his spirits. 
But it was the commercial distresses of 1837 and 1838 that called out the strong 
native talent of our poet. The cry for "'cheap bread" rung from one end to the 
other of the land. Elliott took a decided stand for the repeal of the corn- 
laws, and poured forth his Corn-Law Rhymes, that did more than any. other one 
thing to stir the heart and rouse the energies of the people against monopoly; 
and he had the satisfaction, in a few years, to see the great object of the "Corn- 
Law League" fully attained, and free trade in bread-stuffs completely esta- 
blished. In 1841 he retired from business and from active interference in 
politics, to spend his last years at Great Houghton, near Barnsley. After thia 
he wrote and published very little. He died on the 1st of December, 1849.^ 

Elliott's publications are — 1, Corn-Law Rhymes; 2, Love, a Poem; 3, The Vil- 
lage Patriarch, a poem ; 4, Poetical Works ; 5, More Verse and Prose by the Com- 
Law Rhymer, in two volumes. The last, though prepared by the poet himself, 
is a posthumous publication.^ 

In the following singular piece we have a key to many of the Rhymer's 
rhymes. It is the complaint of a heart breaking for want of human sympathy, 
and taking hold, in the yearnings of its tender nature, upon household pets 
where there are no home companions : — 



POOR ANDREW, 

The loving poor ! — So envy calls 

The ever-toiling poor ; 
But oh ! I choke, my heart grows faint, 

When I approach my door ! 
Behind it there are living things, 

Whose silent frontlets say 
They'd rather see me out than in, — 

Feet foremost borne away ! 
My heart grows sick when home I come — 

May God the thought forgive ! 
If 'tAvere not for my dog and cat, 

I think I could not live. 

My dog and cat, when I come home, 

Run out to welcome me, — 
She mewing, with her tail on end, 

While wagging his comes he. 



I 



iThe venerable poet James Montgomerj' 
bears strong testimony to Elliott's poetic 
talent. "I am," says he, "quite willing to 
hazard my critical credit, by avowing my per- 
suasion that in originality, power, and even 
beauty, when he chose to be beautiful, he 
might have measured heads beside Byron in 
tremendous energy, Crabbe in graphic de- 
scription, and Coleridge in effusions of domes- 
tic tenderness ; while in intense sympathy with 
the poor, in whatever he deemed their wrongs 
or their sufferings, he exceeded them all, — and 
perhaps everybody else among contemporaries, 



— in prose or verse. He was, in a transcen- 
dental sense, the poet of the poor, whom, if not 
always wisely, I, at least, dare not say he 
loved too ivell. His personal character, his 
fortunes, and his genius would require, as they 
deserve, a full investigation, as furnishing an 
extraordinary study of human nature." 

2 Read an article on Elliott in Chambers's 
Papers for the People, vol. i. ; also, an interesting 
Autobiographical Memoir, in the London Athe- 
nfeum for January, 1850, dated Sheffield, Jua« 
21, 1841. 



ELLIOTT. 399 

They listen for my homeward steps, 

My smother'd sob they hear, 
"When down my heart sinks, deathly down, 

Because my home is near. 
My heart grows faint when home I come — 

May God the thought forgive ! 
If 'twere not for my dog and cat, 

I think I could not live. 

I'd rather be a happy bird, 

Than, scorn'd and loathed, a king ; 
But man should live while for him lives 

The meanest loving thing. 
Thou busy bee ! how canst thou choose 

So far and wide to roam ? 
Oh, blessed bee ! thy glad wings say 

Thou hast a happy home ! 
But I, when I come home — O God ! 

Wilt thou the thought forgive ? 
If 'twere not for my dog and cat, 

I think I could not live. 

Why come they not ? They do not come 
My breaking heart to meet ! 
m A heavier darkness on me falls — 

K I cannot lift my feet. 

P Oh, yes, they come ! — they never fail 

To listen for my sighs ; 
My poor heart brightens when it meets 

The sunshine of their eyes. 
Again they come to meet me— God ! 

Wilt thou the thought forgive ? 
If 'twere not for my dog and cat, 
I think I could not live. 

This heart is like a churchyard stone ; 

My home is comfort's grave ; 
My playful cat and honest dog 

^Are all the friends I have ; 
And yet my house is fill'd with friends — 
But foes they seem and are. 
What makes them hostile ? Ignorance ; 

Then let me not despair. 
But oh ! I sigh when home I come — 

May God the thought forgive ! 
If 'twere not for my dog and cat, 
I think I could not live. 

In the following piece, we see the hostility of ignorance overcome. The cat 
and dog are replaced by human beings, and the home of taste is the home of 
happiness : — 

THE HOME OF TASTE. 

You seek the home of taste, and find 

The proud mechanic there. 
Rich as a king, and less a slave, 

Throned in his elbow-chair ! 



400 ELLIOTT. 

Or on his sofa, reading Locke, 

Beside his open door ! 
Why start ? — wliy envy worth like his 

The carpet on his floor ? 

You seek the home of sluttery — 

" Is John at home ?" you say. 
" JSTo, sir ; he's at the ' Sportsman's Arms ;' 

The dog-fight's o'er the way." 
Oh, lift the workman's heart and mind 

Above low sensual sin ! 
Give him a home ! the home of taste I 

Outbid the house of gin ! 

Oh, give him taste ! it is the link 

Which binds us to the skies, — 
A bridge of rainbows thrown across 

The gulf of tears and sighs ! 
Or like a widower's little one — 

An angel in a child — 
That leads him to her mother's chair, 

And shows him how she smiled. 



PICTURES OF NATIVE GENIUS. 

O faithful love, by poverty embraced ! 

Thy heart is fire, amid a wintry waste ; 

Thy joys are roses, born on Hecla's brow ; 

Thy home is Eden, warm amid the snow ; 

And she, thy mate, when coldest blows the storm, 

Clings then most fondly to thy guardian form'; 

E'en as tliy taper gives intensest light 

When o'er thy bow'd roof darkest foils the night. 

Oh, if thou e'er hast wrong'd her, if thou e'er 

From those mild eyes hast caused one bitter tear 

To flow unseen, repent, and sin no more ! 

For richest gems compared with her are poor ; 

Gold, weigh'd against her heart, is light, — is vile; 

And when thou suflerest, who shall see her smile ? 

* -x- * * -Sf * 

Let luxury, sickening in profusion's chair, 
Unwisely pamper his unworthy heir. 
And, while he feeds him, blush and tremble too ! 
But, love and labor, blush not, fear not you ! 
Your children, — splinters from the mountain's side, — 
With rugged hands, shall for themselves provide. 
Parent of valor, cast away thy fear ! 
Mother of men, be proud without a tear, 
While round your hearth the woe-nursed virtues move, 
And all that manliness can ask of love ; 
Remember Hogarth, and abjure despair; 
Remember Arkvvright, and the peasant Clare. 
Burns, o'er the plough, sung sweet his wood-notes wild. 
And richest Shakspeare was a poor man's child. 
Sire, green in age, mild, patient, toil-inured. 
Endure thine evils as thou hast endured. 



ELLIOTT. 



401 



Beliold thy wedded daughter, and rejoice ! 
Hear hope's sweet accents in a grandchild's voice ! 
See freedom's bulwarks in thy sons arise, 
And Hampden, Russell, Sidney, in their eyes! 
And should some new Napoleon's curse subdue 
Ail hearihs but thine, let him behold them too, 
And timely shun a deadlier Waterloo. 

SATURDAY. 

To-morrow will be Sunday, Ann. — 

Get up, my child, with me ; 
Thy father rose at four o'clock 

To toil for me and thee. 

The fine folks use the plate he makes, 
And praise it when they dine ; 

For Jolm has taste, — so we'll be neat, 
Although we can't be fine. 

Then let us shake the carpet well. 
And wash and scour the floor, 

And hang the weather-glass he made 
Beside the cupboard-door. 

And polish thou the grate, my love ; 

I'll mend the sofa-arm ; 
The autumn winds blow damp and chill ; 

And John loves to be warm. 

And bring the new white curtain out, 
And string the pink tape on, — 

Mechanics should be neat and clean ; 
And I'll take heed for John. 

And brush the little table, child, 
And fetch the ancient books, — 

John loves to read, and, when he reads, 
How like a king he looks ! 

And fill the music-glasses up 

With water fresh and clear ; 
To-morrow, when he sings and plays, 

The street will stop to hear. 

And throw the dead flowers from the vase, 

And rub it till it glows ; 
For in the leafless garden yet 

He'll find, a winter rose. 

And lichen from the wood he'll bring, 

And mosses from the dell ; 
And from the shelter' d stubble-field 

The scarlet pimpernel.^ 



1 " All this preparation is made for the 
father of the family, the poor mechanic, who 
has got to the end of his week of toil, and is 
coming — home! not to look like a king, but to 
',e a king for two nights and a day. Do we 
say the poor mechanic? Whj', there is no 
king in Europe so rich! He has earned his 



otium cum dignitate, — which they have not ; it 
is his right, not inherited from dead men, but 
the achievement of his own power and will ; 
and for the bows and grimaces and lip-service 
of hollow courtiers, he is surrounded by loving 
looks and sympathizing hearts and willing 
hands." 



34* 



402 SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



EUB OR RUST. 

Idler, why lie down to die ? 

Better rub than rust. 
Hark ! the lark sings in the sky, 

" Die when die thou must ! 
Day is waking, leaves are shaking, 

Better rub than rust." 

In the grave there's sleep enough, — 

" Better rub than rust : 
Death, perhajjs, is hunger-proof. 

Die when die thou must ; 
Men are mowing, breezes blowing, 

Better rub than rust." 

He who will not work shall want ; 

Naught for naught is just, — 
Won't do, must do, when he can't; 

" Better rub than rust. 
Bees are flying, sloth is dying. 

Better rub than rust." 



SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS 

Mlp §xtii in tfee Jiftlj gccah of l^e |[inelcmt^ d^niurg; 

OR FROM 1840 TO 1849 INCLUSIVE. 



{ 



A.be7'crotnhie, J^ohn (1781-1844), of Aberdeen, an eminent Edinburgh 
physician. The Intellectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth, directed 
chiefly against Materialism; a popular metaphysical work, used as a text- 
book in many schools : The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings. 

Sa7iim, .>^>%7^ (1800-1842), of Kilkenny, author of Tales of the OHara 
Family, showing great knowledge of Irish character, habits, customs, and 
feeling. 

!Sarham, ^ic?iard S^ar7ns (1788-1845), an Episcopal clergyman, a 
minor canon of St. Paul's. My Cousin Nicholas, a novel. He is best known, 
however, by a series of humorous stories, in prose and verse, first pub- 
lished in Bentley's Miscellany, 1837,. under the name of "Thomas In- 
goldsby," and now known as The Ingoldshy Legends, which were very 
popular in their day. It does not appear that his wit and humor inter- 
fered with his duties as a clergyman ; and certain it is that in none of 
his writings, however humorous, can be detected an impure or a malig- 
nant allusion. 

^eckford, Wflliam (1759-1844), only sop of a London niillionaira 
Vathek, an Arabian Tale; Modern Novel- Writing, &c. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 403 

3eddoes, Tho^nas J^ovell (1803-1849), son of the eminent physician 
Dr. Thomas Beddoes. Th& Bride! 8 Tragedy, and Death's Jest-Book, or 

The Fool's Tragedy. 

\^lessi?igto7iy Marguerite, Countess of (1780-1849), of Ireland. 
Her maiden name was Power: she early married a Ca^jtain Farmer, 
who soon died; and then she was united to an Irish peer, Charles 
Gardiner, Earl of Blessington. For many years she was famed for her 
beauty and accomplishments. Conversations ivith Lord Byron, two vol- 
umes; The Ldler in Italy, three volumes; The Idler in France, two vol- 
umes ; The Confessions of an Elderly Lady, &c. &c. 

Sur7ies, A.lexander (1805-1841), traveller and Oriental scholar. Travels 
in Bokhara; a valuable work. Was treacherously murdered in Cabul. 

Btcrney, I^ra7fces, — Madame D'Arblay (1752-1840), — novelist, was the 
daughter of Dr. Burney, the author of the History of Music. In early 
life she published Evelina, and soon after Cecilia, novels, which gave her 
a high reputation. She was married to Count D'Arblay, a French 
refugee. Two years after her death appeared her Diary and Letters^ 
edited by her niece, in five volumes. 

'Butler, Jfyiliam jL7^c?fer (1814-1848), of Ireland ; religious and philo- 
sophical writer; Professor of Moral Philosophy in Trinity College, 
Dublin. Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy, remarkable for 
their learning, eloquence, and depth of judgment. 

Carj', JSe7iry I^rancis (1772-1844), translator of the Dmna (7ommec?ia of 
Dante ; of the Birds of Aristophanes ; and of the Odes of Pindar : all 
of which are well executed. 

Coleridge, Henry JVelson (1800-1843), was the author of The Literary 
Remains of his Uncle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge; of a lively narrative. Six 
Months in the West Indies; and of the valuable and instructive book, 
Introduction to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets. At the end of the 
Introduction to this work is the following beautiful tribute to 



THE VALUE OF CLASSICAL, STUDIES. 

These inestimable advantages, which no modern skill can wholly coun- 
terpoise, are known and felt by the scholar alone. He has not failed, in 
the sweet and silent studies of his youth, to drink deep at those sacred 
fountains of all that is just and beautiful in human language. The 
thoughts and the words of the master-spirits of Greece and of Borne are 
inseparably blended in his memory; a sense of their marvellovTS har- 
monies, their exquisite fitness, their consummate polish, has sunken for- 
ever in his heart, and thence throws out light and fragrancy upon the 
gloom and the annoyances of his maturer years. No avocations of pro- 
fessional labor will make him abandon their wholesome study ; in the midst 
of a thousand cares, he will find an hour to recur to his boyish lessons, — 
to reperuse them in the pleasurable consciousness of old associations, 
and in the clearness of manly judgment, and to apply them to himself 
and to the world with superior profit. The more extended his sphere 
of learning in the literature of modern Europe, the more deeply, though 
the more wisely, will he reverence that of classical antiquity; and in 
declining age, when the appetite for magazines and reviews, and the ten- 
times repeated trash of the day, has failed, he will retire, as it were, 
within a circle of schoolfellow friends, and end his secular studies, as he 
began them, with his Homer, his Horace, and his Shakspeare. 



404 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



Parley, George (1800-1846). Sylvia, or the May Queen; Errors of Extask, i 
and other poems. Was one of the writers in the Athenceum. ] 

S>ls?'aellj, Isaac (1766-1848), son of an Italian Jew, and father of Et. i 
Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, M.P. Curiosities of Literature, two volumes; i 
Quarrels of Authors, three volumes; Calamities of Authors, two volumes; , 
Amenities of Literature, consisting of sketches and characters of English ' 
literature. All these works are the result of extensive reading, and contain i 
a vast amount of curious, interesting, and valuable information. 

S)' Oyly, Geoi^ge (1778-1846), a clergyman. In conjunction with Eev. 
Richard Mant, he prepared an Annotated edition of the Bible. ' 

JF7^anMrn, Jbh?i (1786-1847 probably), the renowned traveller, who !! 
perished in the Arctic regions about 1847 ; for the time and place and !; 
manner of his death are unknown. Narrative of a Journey to the Shores ] 
of the Polar Seas, 1819-22 ; Narrative of a Second Expedition, &c., 1825-27. ] 

JiVere, »7". Hookham (1769-1846), diplomatist and poet, and one of the I 
founders of the Quarterly Review ; Minister in Spain during the Penin- 
sular War, and for many years a resident of Malta, where he died. 
Works — a humorous poem, alternately comic and serious, entitled Most , 

Interesting Particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table; Psalms 
in Verse. He also translated Theognis with great fidelity and elegance ; 
The Clouds, The Acharnians, The Knights, and The Birds of Aristophanes.^ i 

Griffin, Gerald (1803-1849), of Limerick, Ireland, a journalist and a i 
writer of fiction. The Munster Tales; The Collegians; The Rivals, &c. 

Gicriiey, Joseph Jo/in (1788-1847), a minister of the '* Society of Friends," 
is known more as a philanthropist than as an author : still, he published 
some works of great value. Letters addressed to Henry Clay, on the 
happy effects of emancipation in the West Indies ; Essays on the Evi- 
dences. Doctrines, and Practical Operations of Christianity; Thoughts on 
Habit and Discipline; On the Observance of the Sabbath; The Accordance 
of Geology with Natural and Revealed Religion ; Right Application of Know- 
ledge, &c. &c. His whole life was one of most active benevolence and . 
beneficence in every good cause ; and it is astonishing how much he 
accomplished."'^ 

Mall, Sasil (1788-1844), traveller. Accmmi of a Voyage of Discovery to < 
the West Coast of Corea; Travels in North America, 1827 and 1828; and ! 
Extracts from a Journal written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico. j 

JSerhert, Hon. and ^ev. William (1778-1847), poet and translator. \ 
Helga, a poem founded on Scandinavian history ; translations from the 
Norse, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; Attila, an epic poem upon the 
establishment of Christianity by the overthrow of the Gothic king. ' 

Molland, Zord (1773-1840). Account of the Life and Writings of Lope 
Felix de Vega.^ I 



1 See specimens in the Compendium of Clas- 
sical Literature. 

2 " Every clay was M'ell packed up ; and hours 
and seasons were set apart for leisure and re- 
laxation, as well as for employment and labor. 
By these means he could attend at the bank, 
Bpeak at a public meeting, write an essay, and 
take a long and laborious journey; and he 
could alyo be the companion of his beloved 
family, walk in his fragrant gardens, admire 
with intelligent taste the varieties of nature, 
or go to describe to the children in a school 
the wonderful structure of the human eye. 



While he thus performed the labors of life, ho 
enjoyed its comforts ; what was great was well 
attended to, what was small was not neglected : 
he seemed to have time and place for every 
thing, except idleness : he was most thoroughly 
a man, as well as a Christian, and could con- 
sistently say, with the apostle, 'The life I live 
in the flesh is by the faith of the Son ot God.' 
— Gentleman's Magazine. 

3 De Vega was the celebrated Spanish dramar 
tist, who coni; osed with so much rapidity that 
he produced liu re than two thousand di-amas. 



SUrrLEMENTAR Y A UTUOllS. 405 

JSboA', T^/codore £JdH'ard (1788-1842), London, dramatist, novelist, and 
jouriKilist. He had ^vonderlul power of htiprovimtising, or extempora- 
neous eomposition of songs and music. Smjirujs and JJoini/ti, three series, 
9 vols.; Gilbert Guniey; Jack Bray ; Maxwell; Love and Pride, &c. ; and 
numerous musical ojieras. He produced in all about forty volumes; but 
they have little enduring- value. 

Jrelcn/d, Jo/m (17G1-18-12), a divine, a writer in the early volumes of the 
Qaarterhj Review, and author of the learned work, Paf/aniani and Chris- 
tianity Compared, — an eloquent exposition of the suflerings of the early 
Christians. 

£:)ii(/ftt, Heiny Gallj' ( 1 787-1 84G), author of several Eastern tales, in 
verse, llderim, a Syrian Tale, 1816; Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale; and 
Alashtar, an Arabian Tale, 1817. They excited little attention, and the 
author turned his attention to mediaeval architecture. Ecclesiastical Archi- 
tecture of Italy from the Time of Constantine to the Fifteenth Century. 

J/ister, 2^. H. ( -1842), novelist and biographer. Novels, — Granby, 
Herbert Lacy, and Arlinyton; also, Memoir of the Life and Administration 
of the Earl of Clarendon, 3 vols. 

J^aglnn, Ifrlliani (1794-1842), of Cork, a distinguished periodical writer, 
contributing chiefly to Blackwood and Eraser. His best articles were a 
series of admirable Shakspeare Papers, and a series of Homeric Ballads. 
For specimens of the latter, see Classical Literature, under "Homer." 

M(i?ft, "Rev. 'Rlc?iard (1776-1848), was educated at Trinity College, 
Oxford. In 1815, rector of St. Botolph's, Bishopgate; in 1820, Bishop 
of Killaloe; and, in 1823, translated to the See of Down, Connor, and 
Dromore, which he held till his death. His prose works are mostly 
sermons ; his poetical, — Miscellaneous Poems, The Slave, and other Poetical 
Pieces, the British Months, and some sweet Sacred Lyrics. In conjunction 
with Eev. George D'Oyly, rector of Lambeth, he prepared an edition of 
the Bible, with a selection of notes from the best commentators of the 
Church of England. 

Marrjfcit, jFredericl' (1792-1848), Captain of the Royal Navy, and 
celebrated painter of English sailor-life. Frank Mildmay, 1829 ; Newton 
Forster, 1832; Peter Simple, 1833; Jacob Faithful, 1835; Midshipman 
Easy, 1836, &c. &c. 

Jtfttc/iellj T/fomas (1783-1845), a distinguished classical critic. Editions 
of Aristophanes and Sophocles. His Preliminary Discourse to the Comedies 
of Aristophanes is one of the choicest pieces of literary criticism in our 
language. The characters of Socrates and Plato have nowhere been 
more eloquently and truthfully drawn.^ 

Mo7^)er, James (1780-1849), Secretary of Embassy in Egypt. Journey 
throuyh Persia in ISOS and 1S09. A Second Journey through Persia, 
between IS 10-16. "Morier's Journeys are justly regarded as works of 
authority on the civil, political, domestic, and commercial circumstances 
of the Persians." — Lowndes. Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, three 
volumes ; Zohrab the Hostage, 1832 ; Mirza, 184i. All these novels per- 
tain to the manners of the East. 

Mudt'e, 7iobert (1777-1842), a voluminous writer; w^ote and compiled 
about ninety volumes. A Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature, two 
series of four volumes each, entitled The Heavens, the Earth, the Sea, and 
the Air, and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter; The Feathered Tribes of 
Great Britain; Babylon the Great, — a Picture of Men and Things in Lon- 

i For extracts from this " Discourse," see the Compendium of Classical Literature, 



406 SUPPLEMENTARY A UTHORS. 

don; The British Naturalist; Han, — Physical, Moral, Social, and Intel' 
lectual, &c. 

Sorter y Sir ^obe^^t Ji^er (1775-1842), a painter and traveller, in which 
latter character he will be especially remembered ; for no more interest- 
ing work of the kind can be found than his Travels in Georgia, Persia, 
Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c., 1817-20. 

^richard, James Cowles (1786-1848), a distinguished ethnologist and 
physician. Besearches into the Physical History of Mankind, 1813 ; Th& 
Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, 1831; The Natural History of Man, 
1843. He may be said to have been tlie first who raised ethnology to 
the rank of a science. 

Reynolds, I^rederick (1765-1841), dramatic writer; author of about 
one hundred pieces, the best of which are — The Dramatist; Laugh when 
You Can; The Delinquent; How to Grow Bich; 3fanagement, &c. 

CRose, William Stewart (1775-1843), translator of the Orlando Furioso of 
Ariosto, and author of a volume of poems entitled The Crusade of St. Louis. 

Stirli7ig , John (1806-1844), conductor of the Athenceum; Poems; Essays , 
in the Athenceum and Blackwood ; Strafford, a tragedy. 

Hennantj William (1785-1848), Scotch poet, and Professor of Oriental i 
Languages at St. Andrew's. Anster Fair, a mock-heroic poem on the 
marriage of Maggie Lauder, the famous heroine of Scottish song; Thane < 
of Fife; Dinging Down of the Cathedral. 

Toiina, Mrs. Charlotte Blizabeth^ (1790-1846), is the author of a 
great number of excellent prose works, and of some sweet religious i 
poetry. Of the former are — The F lower-Garden; The Wrongs of Women; 
Falsehood and Truth; Judcea Capta; Tales and Illustrations, three volumes, ■ 
&c. Her longest poem is Osric, a Missionary Tcde. Slie edited The Chrii- i 
tian Ladies^ Magazine, a monument of her talents, industry, and piety. 

2urner, S/iaro?i (1768-1847), a London solicitor and historian. A His-i 
tory of the Anglo-Saxons; a History of England during the Middle Ages; a 
Sacred History of the World; an historical poem, Bichard Third. In one 
of Ills works he thus speaks of the 

CAUSE OF A nation's DECLINE, 

The freedom of Rome fell with her virtue and moral habits. What 
the patricians were, who led her armies to those victories -iirhich esta- 
blished her republic, we may uiferffrom the fact that one of her greatest 
conquerors in Africa, before Scipio, though a patrician of high rank, 
possessed but seven acres of land for the support of his family. In this 
state luxury was impossible and unvalued, and the mind was invigorated 
by its temperate food. But when expensive habits made riches essential, 
both body and spirit became enervated. j 

Tytler, Tatric/c J^raser (1791-1849), of Edinburgh, son of Lord j 
Woodhouselee who wrote the Universal History. The son wrote History ■ 
of Scotland from Alexander HI, to the Union of the Crowns, 1603 ; 
Lives of Scottish Worthies; and Life of Sir Walter Baleigh. 

Ward, ^. "Plianer (1764-1846), held office in the Admiralty. Tremaine,' 
or the Man of Befinement, a sort of metaphysical and religious romance ; i 
De Vere, or the Man of Independence; De Clifford, or the Constant 3Ian. i 

1 She was the daiiglitor of an Episcopal clergy- I union was a very unh<'ippy cue. He died in 
man in Norwich, and was early married to a 1837; and in 1841 she was married to Mr. Lucius 
Captain Phelau, of the British army. The j H. J. Tonua, of Loudon. 



JEFFREY. 407 



FRANCIS JEFFREY, 1773-1850. 

}]. Francis (Lord) Jeffrey, the great Coryphaeus of English critics, was born 
n the city of Edinburgh on the 23d of October, 1773. He was the eldest son 
if Mr. George Jeffrey, who, being bred to the law, had attained to the position 
if clerk of sessions. From his infancy the son evinced the greatest quickness of 
ipprehension and lively curiosity, and could read well when only in his fourth 
^•ear. He was sent to the High School of Edinburgh in 1781, where he remained 
ix years. He then went to the University of Glasgow, where he had the benefit 
>f the instruction of some of the best professors in the kingdom. He stayed 
■here, however, but two sessions, and, in 1791, he entered Queen's College, 
Oxford. But the atmosphere of Oxford did not agree with his Scottish tastes 
imd feelings, and he remained there but one session, when he returned to Edin- 
burgh and resumed his legal studies, 

, In December, 1792, Mr. Jeftrey became a member of the "Speculative So- 
ijiety," — an extra-academical school of oratory and debate, and of literary com- 
position, connected with the University of Edinburgh. On this intellectual 
irena he met and contended with Walter Scott, Henry Brougham, James 
Mackintosh, Francis Horner, John Archibald Murray, and others who after- 
wards became distinguished in the literary or political world; and through life 
he delighted to recall his connection with this society, which, while it had con- 
tributed greatly to his pleasure, had done so much to prepare him for the 
higher contests of the world. In December, 1794, he was called to the bar, 
and applied himself with his usual energy to his profession. But success in 
the law is seldom attained until after years of dreary toil and perseverance; 
and Mr. Jeftrey wrote to his brother, so late as 1803, that he had not made £100 
in any one year by his profession. In 1801 he was married to Miss Catharine 
Wilson, daughter of the Eev. Charles Wilson, Professor of Ecclesiastical His- 
tory in St. Mary's College, St. Andrew's. 

It was obvious that the intellectual activity of Jeffrey and his associates, 
urged by ambition and conscious power, could not long be restrained within 
the narrow professional channels to which it was then confined. Their social 
circle received a valuable addition, in 1797, by the arrival in Edinburgh of the 
Rev. Sydney Smith, who, in the preface to his Essays, has given some account 
of his genial associates, and of the establishment of the Edinburgh Beview.^ Of 
this event, so impertant in our author's life, and which in its results placed 
him at the head of the literary world, I will give his own account, somewhat 
abridged, as communicated to Mr. Robert Chambers, in November, 1846: — 

"I cannot say, exactly, where the project of the Edinburgh Review was first 
talked of among the proprietors. But the first serious consultations about it — 
and which led to our application to a publisher — were held in a small house 
where I then lived, in Buccleuch Place. They were attended by Sydney 
Smith, F. Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Murray, and some of them also by 
Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first 



1 See the account in the biography of Sydney Smith. 



408 



JEFFREY. 



three numbers were given to the publisher, — he taking the risk and defraying 
the charges. There was then no individual editor j but as many of us as could 
be got to attend, used to meet in a dingy room of Wilson's printing-office, in 
Craig's Close, where the proofs of our own articles were read over and remarked 
upon, and attempts made also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which 
were then offered by strangers. But we had seldom patience to go through 
with this; and it was soon found necessary to have a responsible editor; and 
the office was pressed upon me."i 

The first number of the Edinburgh Review appeared on the 1st of November, 
1802. The number of copies printed was seven hundred and fifty. The de- 
mand, however, exceeded this limited supply: seven hundred and fifty more 
were thrown off, and successive editions, still more numerous, were called for. 
In 1808 the quarterly circulation had risen to about nine thousand: it is 
thought to have reached its maximum about 1813, when twelve or thirteen 
thousand copies were printed. 

Never again, perhaps, will one generation of critics have such a splendid! 
harvest to reap, — such a magnificent vintage to gather in. Could the editor 
have surveyed the thirty years' produce that lay before him, awaiting his 
critical distribution, he must have been overwhelmed by its prodigality and: 
richness. There was the poetry of Crabbe, of Campbell, Moore, Southey, Cole-' 
ridge, and Wordsworth, — types of different schools ; there was the gorgeousi 
chivalry of Scott, with his long file of novels and romances, like an endless' 
procession of the representatives of all ages, conditions, and countries; there' 
was the Oriental splendor and grace of Byron, alternating with his fierce' 
energy and gloomy philosophy, — the still more erring and extravagant geniusi 
of Shelley, — and the youthful bloom of Keats; there were the tales of Maria' 
Edgeworth, of Miss Austen, Gait, Wilson, and other not unworthy associates;'' 
the histories of Hallam, and the historical pictures of Macaulay; innumerable' 
biographies of great contemporaries who had gone before, — the Sheridans,, 
Currans, Wilberforces, and Hebers; innumerable books of travel, that thre^^ 
open the world to our curious gaze ; the gossiping treasures of Strawberry Hil]| 
and other family repositories, that revived the wits and poets and beauties oil 
a past age; the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys: the inimitable letters of Cowpei. 
drawn from their sacred privacy; the policy and intrigues of courts laid bare ' 
the whole world of literature and the living world of Europe stirred to theiij 
inmost depths. What rich materials in the wars and politics of the times, — ii| 
the rise and fall of Napoleon, — in the overthrow of kings and dynasties, — ^irj 
the perturbations even of the mighty heart of England throbbing to be free i 
What discoveries in science and the arts, — steam, gas, railways, and all thai 
facilitates and sweetens social intercourse! Over such vast and interesting' 
fields had the Edinburgh Beview to travel, moving firmly under the guidancl 
of its editor, with elate and confident step, and attended by thousands wh' 
caught its enthusiasm and echoed its sentiments and opinions.^ 



iThat most liberal and enterprising pub- 
lisher, Archibald Constable, — the Mtecenas of 
Scottish authors, — remunerated the editor on 
a scale of princely liberality. From 1803 to 
1809, a sum of two hundred guineas was given 
for editing each number; and from 1813 to 
1826, seven hundred pounds a number. The 
I'rateruity of critics were — Sydney Smith, then 
thirty-four years old; Jeffrey, twenty-nine; 



Dr. Thomas Brown, twenty -four; Home 
twenty-four; Brougham, twenty-three; AUei 
thirty-two ; Dr. John Thomson, thirty-eight 
and Thomas Thomson, 'thirty-two. 

2 " Beyond all doubt, Jeffrey was the soi 
and directing spirit of this celebrated an 
most successful enterprise. To describe Sco 
tish politics or Scottish society as it the 
existed, is a task we, who can only write fro 



I 



JEFFREY. 



409 



During all the time that Mr. Jeffrey was editing the Beview, — exerting an in- 
fluence in the republic of letters more commanding and more wide-spread in 
both hemispheres than any other man that ever lived — he was steadily ad- 
vancing in his practice at the bar, and gaining a reputation as a lawyer second 
only to his reputation as a critic. In 1820 he was elected Lord Kector of the 
University of Glasgow, and in 1829 he was chosen Dean of the Faculty of Advo- 
cates, an honor unanimously conferred upon him by his brethren of the bar, 
and which was justly regarded not only as a token of personal confidence and 
respect, but as an unequivocal recognition of his having reached the summit 
of his profession as an advocate. On his election to this office, he resigned the 
editorship of the Edinburgh Revieio into the hands of Mr. Macvey Napier. 

The year 18.30 brought Mr. Jeffrey prominently into public life, by his being 
appointed Lord Advocate — the j^rime minister for Scotland — in the administra- 
tion of Earl Grey. He accepted the office -with sincere reluctance, for he had 
to leave the retirement of private life, in which he had his chief solace and de- 
light. He was elected to Parliament, and took his seat in the House of Com- 
mons in February, 1831, and remained a member for more than three years. 
Here he barely sustained his former reputation, but did not add to it; and 
though he delivered a brilliant speech in favor of the Reform Bill, he made no 
attempt to shine as a debater. 

On his retirement from political life, he was welcomed again to the Supreme 
Court of his country by the legal profession and by the public; for all had 
confidence in his learning, his discernment, and his industry, as well as his 
inflexible moral principles. ^ His judicial labors were relieved by his unabated 
love of literature. He contributed a few articles to his early love, the Edin- 
hxirgh, including critiques on the lives of Mackintosh and Wilberforce; and at 
length he consented to the publication of a selection from the whole of his con- 
tributions, similar collections having been made and published with great suc- 
cess from the writings of Macaulay and Sydney Smith. The work appeared in 



hearsay, will not attempt. Subservient to 
power, intolerant to all who diflfered from 
them, — crushing with illiberal and ignorant 
arrogance the head which was raised to con- 
front oppression, or the voice which dared to 
spenk for freedom, — were the ruling men of 
Scotland in that day. A spirit of intense job- 
bing pervaded all departments of the public 
service, and the knowledge of this, the greatest 
of all the sciences, was the best, if not the 
only, passport to public favor. Education of 
the people was Jacobinical, — missions abroad 
were Jacobinical, — public meetings or dis- 
cussions on political subjects, flat revolution. 
In short, the demon of vulgar, cringing, inso- 
lent ignorance reigned paramount, and trod 
out every generous aspiration, even in its 
earliest spark. 

" Against this hydra-headed monster did 
the.se adventurous striplings unfold the defy- 
ing banner of the E<Unhurgh Review; a;id 
tliey held it aloft against many a hurricane, 
till they planted it triumphantly on the grave 
of their antagonist. The united hardiiiood 
Rnd vigor — the fearlessness of youth with the 
strength of manhood — with which its pages 
werfr, devoied to tne vindication of popular 
rights, — the shout of merriment, or the cut- 
ting sneer with which it uniformly saluted 
tbo be-wigged and pompous form of venerable 



abuse, — its irreverent mockery of solemn and 
time-honored prejudices, and its free, truthful 
handling of the great principles of justice and 
liberty, — have rendered this remarkable jour- 
nal a kind of mausoleum, reared for the inter- 
ment of defunct and antiquated error. It will 
stand as long as our language is understood, — 
a noble monument to tell posterity of the nar- 
row, perverted bigotry which oppressed their 
forefathers, and of those daring si)irits by 
whom the chains were broken and the captive 
mind set free." — North British Review, xiii, 
276, 277. 

1 " His great courtesy to the bar, and his singti- 
lar patience, might be taken as models of judi- 
cial demeanor. But who shall tell the almost 
magic charm that he imparted to the dull 
routine of a Court of Justice ? That he touched 
nothing which he did not adorn was the least 
of his praise. How many sat daily there, 
listening to the wonderful words of that now 
remarkable sage, replete with wisdom, elo- 
quence, and legal lore — catching those bright 
jewels which he scattered as profusely over 
the musty pages of a trumpery Record, as if 
he were engaged on some immortal work \ * * 
We may see great lawyers and great judges in 
our day, but we shall never look upon hia like 
again." — North British Review, xiii. 283. 



36 



410 JEFFREY. 

1844, in four volumes, which comprised only about a third of what he had 
actually written for the Review. 

During the latter years of Lord Jeffrey's life, though his health had been 
shaken by several severe attacks, his cheerfulness and clearness of intellect 
were undiminished. He scarcely seemed old at seventy-six. Recent circum- 
stances had revived his interest in the Edinburgh Revieto. His only child, a 
daughter, was married to Mr. Empson, professor of law in East India College, 
at Haileybury ; and in 1847, on the death of Mr. Macvey Napier, Mr. Empson 
succeeded to the editorship of that journal, from which his illustrious relative 
had derived such solid and lasting honors. He occasionally employed a leisure 
hour in aiding the editor until within one week of his death, and sat in court 
even within four days of it. On returning from the court on Tuesday, January 
22, 1850, he complained of a slight accession of cold; fever ensued, and on the 
succeeding Saturday, ^ January 26, ;|tvhile his medical attendant was in the act 
of feeling his pulse, life became extinct. " He was mourned deeply and widely 
with no common sorrow. He had lived and died among his own people; and 
his native country, amidst her grief, rejoiced — and will long rejoice — in hig 
fame,"2 

THE PERISHABLE NATURE OF A POETS FAME. 

Next to the impression of the vast fertility, compass, and 
beauty of our English poetry, the reflection that recurs most 
frequently and forcibly to us, in accompanying Mr. Campbell 
through his wide survey, is the perishable nature of poetical 
fame, and the speedy oblivion that has overtaken so many of the 
promised heirs of immortality. Of near two hundred and fifty 
authors, whose Avorks are cited in these volumes,^ by far the 
greater part of whom were celebrated in their generation, there 
are not thirty who now enjoy any thing that can be called popu- 
larity — whose works are to be found in the hands of ordinary 
readers — in the shops of ordinary booksellers — or in the press for 
republication. About fifty more may be tolerably familiar to 
men of taste or literature : the rest slumber on the shelves of 



l"He is gone; and what we have written is ' and deep philosopliy, such as left every man 
one faint garland laid on his honored tomb, who heard him better and happier than be- 
fore." 

" He has gone down to his grave laden with 
all under which a man would wish to die — 
honor, love, obedience — troops of friends — 
every thing which should accompany the old 
age of such a man — the gratitude of a nation 
in whose service his life was spent, and the un- 
feigned tears of all who were ever i)rivileged 
to come within the reach of his influence.' — 
North British Review. 

2 Read a very interesting sketch of his life 
in Chambers's Papers for the People, — the last 
article in the second volume. Also, North 
British Revietv, vols. i. and xiii. For a very 
full accoi;nt of this remarkable man, read his 
life by Lord Cockburn, who Justly styles him 
"the greatest of British critics." 

3 Campbell's Specimens of British Poets, from 
a review of which in the Edinburgh Review 
this extract is taken. 



But our task is not yet done; our woven 
wreath still needs some of its brightest flowers. 
We can but touch what remains with a light, 
and we do it with a trembling hand. For who 
that ever came \\ithin the fascination of his 
society — that ever enjoyed his acquaintance or 
his friendship — can even yet speak, or write, or 
think of him without eniotion? If he was 
great as a critic, as a lawyer, and as a judge, 
he was without a rival in the charms of his 
conversation, and the wonderful attractions of 
his daily intercourse. He was the best talker 
of his day; and no accomplishment is more 
enviable or more rare. He was no professed 
Bayer of good things — not a monopolizer of 
sound — not a lecturer let loose at a dinner- 
table — but genial, free, and ever fresh, welled 
forth his thoughts from the fountains of his 
mind — full of wit, and quaintness, and the 
most playful fancy, yet tinged with wisdom 



JEFFREY. 411 

collectors, and are partially known to a few antiquaries and 
scholars. 

Now, the fame of a poet is popular, or nothing. He does not 
address himself, like the man of science, to the learned, or those 
who desire to learn, but to all mankind ; and his purpose, being 
to delight and to be praised, necessarily extends to all who can 
receive pleasure, or join in applause. It is strange, and some- 
what humiliating, to see how great a proportion of those who had 
once fought their way successfully to distinction, and surmounted 
the rivalry of contemporary envy, have again sunk into neglect. 
We have great deference for public opinion ; and readily admit 
that nothing but what is good can be permanently popular. But, 
while we Avould foster all that it bids to live, we would willingly 
revive much that it leaves to die. The very multiplication of 
works of amusement necessarily withdraws many from notice 
that deserve to be kept in remembrance, for we should soon find 
it labor, and not amusement, if we were obliged to make use of 
them all, or even to take all upon trial. 

As the materials of enjoyment and instruction accumulate 
around us, more and more must thus be daily rejected and left to 
waste ; for while our tasks lengthen, our lives remain as short as 
ever ; and the calls on our time multiply, while our time itself is 
flying swiftly away. This superfluity and abundance of our 
treasures, therefore, necessarily render much of them worthless*; 
and the veriest accidents may, in such a case, determine what 
part shall be preserved, and what thrown away and neglected. 
When an army is decimated, the very bravest may fall ; and 
many poets, worthy of eternal remembrance, have been for- 
gotten, merely because there was not room in our memories for 
ail. 

By such a work as the " Specimens," however, this injustice of 
fortune may be partly redressed ; some small fragments of an 
immortal strain may still be rescued from oblivion, and a wreck 
of a name preserved, which time appeared to have swallowed up 
forever. There is something pious, we think, and endearing, in 
the office of thus gathering up the ashes of renown that has 
passed away, or, rather, of calling back the departed life of a 
transitory glow, and enabling those great spirits which seemed to 
be Iwid forever, still, to draw a tear of pity, or a throb of admi- 
ration, from the hearts of a forgetful generation. The body of 
their poetry, probably, can never be revived ; but some sparks 
of its spirit may yet be preserved in a narrower and feebler 
frame. 

When we look back upon the havoc which two hundred years 
have thus made in the ranks of our immortals, — and, above all, 
when we refer their rapid disappearance to the quick succession 
of new competitors, and the accumulation of more good works 



412 JEFFREY. 

than there is time to peruse, — we cannot help being dismayed at 
the prospect which lies before the writers of the present day. 
There never was an age so prolific of popular poetry as that in 
which we now live ; and, as wealth, population, and education 
extend, the produce is likely to go on increasing. 

The last ten years have produced, we think, an annual supply 
of about ten thousand lines of good staple poetry, — poetry from 
the very first hands that we can boast of, — that runs quickly to 
three or four large editions, and is as likely to be permanent as 
present success can make it. Now, if this goes on for a hundred 
years longer, Avhat a task will await the poetical readers of 1919! 
Our living poets will then be nearly as old as Pope and Swift are 
at present, — but there will stand between them and that genera- 
tion nearly ten times as much fresh and fashionable poetry as is 
now interposed between us and those writers ; and, if Scott, and 
Byron, and Campbell have already cast Pope and Swift a good 
deal into the shade, in what form and dimensions are they them- 
selves likely to be presented to the eyes of their great-grand- 
children ? 

The thought, Ave own, is a little appalling; and, we confess, we 
see nothing better to imagine than that they may find a comfort- 
able place in some new collection of specimens, — the centenary 
of the present publication. There, — if the future editor have any 
t^ing like the indulgence and veneration for antiquity of his pre- 
decessor, — there shall posterity still hang with rapture on the 
half of Campbell — and the fourth part of Byron — and the sixth 
of Scott — and the scattered tithes of Crabbe — and the three per 
cent, of Southey — while some good-natured critic shall sit in our 
mouldering chair, and more than half prefer them to those by 
whom they have been superseded! 

It is an hyperbole of good nature, however, we fear, to ascribe 
to them even those dimensions at the end of a century. After a 
lapse of two hundred and fifty years, we are afraid to think of 
the space they may have shrunk into. We have no Shakspeare, 
alas! to shed a never-setting light on his contemporaries; and, 
if we continue to write and rhyme at the present rate for two 
hundred years longer, there must be some new art of short-hand 
reading invented, or all reading must be given up in despair. 

LANDSCAPE BEAUTY AND ITS ASSOCIATED PLEASURES. 

It is easy enough to understand how the sight of a picture or 
statue should affect us nearly in the same way as the sight of the 
original ; nor is it much more diff.cult to conceive how the sight 
of a cottage should give us something of the same feeling as the 
sight of a peasant's family, and the aspect of a town raise many 
of the same ideas as the* appearance of a multitude of persons. 



JEFFREY. 413 

We may begin, therefore, with an example a little more com- 
plicated. Take, for instance, the case of a common English land- 
scape, — green meadows, with grazing and ruminating cattle ; 
!canals or navigable rivers ; well fenced, well cultivated fields ; 
neat, clean, scattered cottages ; humble antique churches, with 
churchyard elms and crossing hedgerows, — all seen under bright 
skies, and in good weather. There is much beauty, as every one 
will acknowledge, in such a scene. But in what does the beauty 
consist? Not certainly in the mere mixture of colors and forms; 
for colors more pleasing, and lines more graceful (according to 
any theory of grace that may be preferred), might be spread 
upon a board, or a painter's pallet, without engaging the eye to 
a second glance, or raising the least emotion in the mind ; but in 
the picture of human happiness that is presented to our imagina- 
tions and affections, — in the visible and unequivocal signs of 
comfort, and cheerful and peaceful enjoyment — and of that secure 
and successful industry that insures its continuance — and of the 
piety by which it is exalted — and of the simplicity by which it 
is contrasted with the guilt and the fever of a city life ; in the 
images of health and temperance and plenty which it exhibits 
to every eye — and in the glimpses which it affords to warmer 
imaginations of those primitive or fabulous times, when man was 
uncorrupted by luxury and ambition, and of those humble re- 
treats in which we still delight to imagine that love and phi- 
losophy may find an unpolluted asylum. At all events, however, 
it is human feeling that excites our sympathy, and forms the true 
object of our emotions. It is man, and man alone, that we see 
in the beauties of the earth which he inhabits ; or, if a more sen- 
sitive and extended sympathy connect us with the lower families 
of animated nature, and make us rejoice with the lambs that 
bleat on the uplands, or the cattle that repose in the valley, or 
even with the living plants that drink the bright sun and the 
balmy air beside them, it is still the idea of enjoyment — of feel- 
ings that animate the existence of sentient beings — that calls 
forth all our emotions, and is the parent of all the beauty with 
which we proceed to invest the inanimate creation around us. 

Instead of this quiet and tame English landscape, let us now 
take a Welsh or a Highland scene, and see whether its beauties 
will admit of being explained on the same principle. Here we 
shall have lofty mountains and rocky and lonely recesses, tufted 
woods hung over precipices, lakes intersected with castled promon- 
tories, ample solitudes of unploughed and untrodden valleys, 
nameless and gigantic ruins, and mountain echoes repeating the 
scream of the eagle and the roar of the cataract. This, too, is 
beautiful, and, to those who can interpret the language it speaks, 
far more beautiful than the prosperous scene with which we have 
contrasted it. Yet, lonely as it is, it is to the recollection of 



414 



JEFFREY. 



man and the suggestion of human feelings that its beauty also is 
•owing. The mere forms and colors that compose its visible 
appearance are no more capable of exciting any emotion in the 
mind than the forms and colors of a Turkey carpet. It is sym- 
pathy with the present or the past, or the imaginary inhabitants 
of such a region, that alone gives it either interest or beauty ; 
and the delight of those who behold it will always be found to 
be in exact proportion to the force of their imaginations and the 
warmth of their social affections. The leading impressions here 
are those of romantic seclusion and primeval simplicity ; lovers 
sequestered in these blissful solitudes, "from towns and toils 
remote," and rustic poets and philosophers communing with 
nature, and at a distance from the low pursuits and selfish 
malignity of ordinary mortals : then there is the sublime im- 
pression of the Mighty Powers which piled the massive cliifs 
upon each other, and rent the mountains asunder, and scattered 
their giant fragments at their base, and all the images connected 
with the 'monuments of ancient magnificence and extinguished 
hostility, — the feuds, and the combats, and the triumphs of its 
wild and primitive inhabitants, contrasted with the stillness and 
desolation of the scenes where they lie interred, and the romantic 
ideas attached to their ancient traditions, and the peculiarities 
of the actual life of their descendants; their wild and enthu- 
siastic poetry ; their gloomy superstitions ; their attachment to 
their chiefs ; the dangers and the hardships and enjoyments of 
their lonely huntings and fishings ; their pastoral shielings on 
the mountains in summer ; and the tales and the sports that 
amuse the little groups that are frozen into their vast and track- 
less valleys in the winter. Add to all this the traces of vast and 
obscure antiquity that are impressed on the language and the 
habits of the people, and on the cliffs and caves and gulfy 
torrents of the land ; and the solemn and touching reflection, 
perpetually recurring, of the weakness and insignificance of 
perishable man, whose generations thus pass away into oblivion, 
with all their toils and ambition ; while nature holds on her 
unvarying course, and pours out her streams, and renews her 
forests, with undecaying activity, regardless of the fate of her 
proud and perishable sovereign. 

SHAKSPEARE.^ 

In many points, Mr. Hazlitt has acquitted himself excellently ; 
partly in the development of the principal characters with which ; 



\ From a peview of the " Characters of Shak- 
speare's Plays, hy William Hazlitt," in the 
fkiinhurgh lieview for August, 1817. Upon 
tbi8 selection which I have made, a critic jn 
the North British Review remarks, "It fur- 



nishes an example of rich and glowing elo-l 
quence, which, for fire of thought and exube-' 
ranee of expression, may rack with the finest 
•^'riting in the language," 



JEFFREY. 415 

^liakspeare has peopled the fancies of all English readers ; but 
irincipally, we think, in the delicate sensibility with which he 
ia> traced, and the natural eloquence with which he has pointed 
»ut, that fond familiarity with beautiful forms and images, — 
hat eternal recurrence to what is sweet or majestic in the simple 
ispects of nature, — that indestructible love of flowers and odors, 
md dews and clear w^aters, and soft airs and sounds, and bright 
ikies, and woodland solitudes, and moonlight bowers, which are 
;he Material elements of Poetry, — and that fine sense of their 
indefinable relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and 
vivifying Soul, and which, in the midst of Shakspeare's most 
■busy and atrocious scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks 
and ruins, — contrasting with all that is rugged and repulsive, 
and reminding us of the existence of purer and brighter ele- 
ments ! — which HE ALONE has poured out from the richness of 
his own mind, without effort or restraint ; and contrived to inter- 
mingle with the play of all the passions and the vulgar course of 
this world's affairs, without deserting for an instant the proper 
business of the scene, or appearing to pause or digress, from the 
love of ornament or need of repose ! — He alone, who, when the 
object requires it, is always keen and worldly and practical, and 
who yet, without changing his hand or stopping his course, scat- 
ters around him, as he goes, all sounds and shapes of sweetness, — 
and conjures up landscapes of immortal fragrance and freshness, 
and peoples them with Spirits of glorious aspect and attractive 
grace, — and is a thousand times more full of fancy and imagery 
and splendor than those who, in pursuit of such enchantments, 
have shrunk back from the delineation of character or passion, 
and declined the discussion of human duties and cares. More 
full of wisdom and ridicule and sagacity than all the moralists 
and satirists that ever existed, he is more wild, airy, and in- 
ventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the poets of all 
regions and ages of the world, — and has all those elements so 
happily mixed up in him, and bears his high faculties so tem- 
perately, that the most severe reader cannot complain of him 
for want of strength or of reason, nor the most sensitive for de- 
fect of ornament or ingenuity. Every thing in him is in unmea- 
sured abundance and unequalled perfection, — but every thing so 
balanced and kept in subordination as not to jostle or disturb or 
take the place of another. The most exquisite poetical concep- 
tions, images, and descriptions are given with such brevity and 
introduced with such skill, as merely to adorn, without loading 
the sense they accompany. Although his sails are purple and 
perfumed, and his prow of beaten gold, they waft him on his 
voyage not less, but more rapidly and directly, than if they had 
been composed of baser materials. All his excellencies, like 
those of Nature herself, are thrown out together ; and, instead of 



416 JEFFREY. 

interfering with, support and recommend each other. His 
flowers are not tied up in garlands, nor his fruits crushed into 
baskets, but spring living from the soil, in all the dew and fresh- 
ness of youth ; while the graceful foliage in which they lurk, and 
the ample branches, the rough and vigorous stem, and the wide- 
spreading roots on which they depend, are present along with 
them, and share, in their places, the equal care of their creator. 

What othfer poet has put all the charms of a Mooniiglit land- 
scape into a single line, — and that by an image so true to nature, 
and so simple, as to seem obvious to the most common observa- 
tion ?— 

" See how the Moonlight sleeps upon this bank !" 

Who else has expressed, in three lines, all that is picturesque 
and lovely in a Summer's Dawn, — first setting before our eyes, 
with magical precision, the visible appearances of the infant 
light, and then, by one graceful and glorious image, pouring on 
our souls all the freshness, cheerfulness, and sublimity of return- 
ing morning ? — 

'' Look, love ! what envious streaks 



Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East ! 
Night's candles are burnt out, — and jocund Day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountains' tops !" 

Where shall we find sweet sounds and odors so luxuriously 
blended and illustrated, as in these few words of sweetness and 
melody, where the author says of soft music, — 

"Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet South 
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
Stealing and giving odor !" 

This is still finer, we think, than the noble speech on Music in 
the Merchant of Venice, and only to be compared with the en- 
chantments of Prospero's island, where all the effects of sweet 
sounds are expressed in miraculous numbers, and traced in their 
operation on all the gradations of being, from the delicate Ariel 
to the brutish Caliban, who, savage as he is, is still touched with 
those supernatural harmonies, and thus exhorts his less poetical 
associates : — 

" Be not afraid ; the isle is full of noises, 
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not; 
Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments 
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices, 
That, if I then had waked after long sleep, 
Will make me sleep again." 

Observe, too, that this and the other poetical speeches of this 
incarnate demon are not mere ornaments of the poet's fancy, but 
explain his character and describe his situation more briefly and 



JEFFREY. 417 

ffectually than any other words could have done. In this phiy, 
ideed, and in the Midsummer Night's Dream, all Eden is un- 
)cked before us, and the whole treasury of natural and super- 
atural beauty poured out profusely, to the delight of all our 
acuities. We dare not trust ourselves with quotations ; but we 
efer to those plays generally, — to the fbrest scenes in As You 
jike It, — to the rustic parts of the Winter's Tale, — several entire 
cenes in Cymbeline, and in Romeo and Juliet, — and many 
>assages in all the other plays, — as illustrating this love of 
lature and natural beauty of which we have been speaking, — 
he power it had over the poet and the power it imparted to 
lim. Who else would have thought, on the very threshold of 
reason and midnight murder, of bringing in so sweet and rural 
m image as this, at the portal of that blood-stained castle of 
Macbeth ?— 

"This guest of summer, 
The temple-hauntiug martlet, does approve, 
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath 
Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze, 
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage,^ but this bird 
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle." 

N'or is this brought in for the sake of an elaborate contrast be- 
tween the peaceful innocence of this exterior and the guilt and 
horrors that are to be enacted within. There is no hint of any 
such suggestion, — but it is set down from the pure love of nature 
and reality, — because the kindled mind of the poet brought the 
whole scene before his eyes, and he painted all that he saw in his 
vision. The same taste predominates in that emphatic exhorta- 
tion to evil, where Lady Macbeth says, — 

'' Look like the innocent flower, 
But be the serpent under it." 

lAnd in that proud boast of the bloody Richard, — 

"But I was horn so high : 
Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top, 
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun !" 

The same splendor of natural imagery, brought simply and 
directly to bear upon stern and repulsive passions, is to be found 
in the cynic rebukes of Apemantus to Timon, — 

"Will these moist trees, 
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels. 
And skip when thou point' st out ? Will the cold brook, 
Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste 
To cure thine o'er-night's surfeit?" 



Coigne of vantage, convenient corner. 



418 WORDSWORTH. 

No one feut Shakspeare would have thought of putting this nohle 
picture into the taunting address of a snappish misanthrope, — 
any more than the following into the mouth of a mercenary 
murderer, — 

"Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, 
And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other !" 

Or this delicious description of concealed love into that of a re- 
gretful and moralizing parent, — 

" But he, his own affection's counsellor, 
Is to himself so secret and so close. 
As is the bud bit with an envious worm 
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, 
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun." 

And yet all these are so far from being unnatural, that they 
are no sooner put where they are, than we feel at once their 
beauty and their effect, and acknowledge our obligations to that 
exuberant genius which alone could thus throw out graces and 
attractions where there seemed to be neither room nor call for 
them. In the same spirit of prodigality he puts this rapturous 
and passionate exaltation of the beauty of Imogen into the mouth 
of one who is not even a lover, — 

"'Tis her breathing that 
Perfumes the chamber thus ! The flame o' the taper 
Bows towards her ! and would under-peep her lids, 
To see the enclosed lights, now canopied 
Under these windows, white and azure, laced 
With blue of heaven's own tinct ! — On her left breast 
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops 
r the bottom of a cowslip !" 

But we must break at once away from these manifold enchant- 
ments.^ 



WILL1A3I WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850. 

William Wordsworth was born on the Tth of April, 1770, at Cockermouth, 
in Cumberland. His parents were of the middle class, and designed him for 
the church ; but poetry and new prospects turned him into another path. His 
pursuit through life was poetry, and his profession that of stamp-distributor 
for the government, in the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland. He 
made his first appearance as a poet in 1793, by the publication of a thin quarto 
volume, entitled An Evening Walk; an Epistle in Verse, addressed to a Young 



1 From a critique ou " Hazlitf s Characters of Shakspeare," in the Edinburgh Beview, 
August, 1817. 



WORDSWORTH. 



419 



Ladyy In the same year he published Descriptive Sketches in Verse, taken 
during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps, of which Coleridge thus writes in his 
Biographia Literaria: — " During the last of my residence at Cambridge, 1794, I 
became acquainted with Mr, Wordsworth's first publication, entitled Descriptive 
Sketches; and seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an original poetic genius 
above the literary horizon more evidently announced." Two years after, the 
two poets, then personally unknown to each other, were brought together, at 
Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire. Coleridge was then in his twenty-fourth, 
and Wordsworth in his twenty-sixth year. A congeniality of pursuit soon 
ripened into intimacy, and in September, 1798, accompanied by Miss Words- 
worth, they made a tour in Germany. 

Wordsworth's next publication was the first volume of his Lyrical Ballads, 
published just after he left for the continent, by Joseph Cottle, of Bristol, who 
purchased the copyright for thirty guineas.^ But it proved a great failure, and 
Cottle was a loser by the bargain. The critics were very severe upon it. Jeffrey 
in the Edinburgh,^ Byron in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and James 
Smith in his Rejected Addresses,"^ and others of less note in the literary world, 
all fired their shafts of reason and ridicule at him. Many years, therefore, 
elapsed before Mr. Wordsworth appeared again as a poet. But he was not idlej 
for in the same year that witnessed the failure of his Lyrical Ballads, he wrote 
his Peter Bell, though he kept it by him many years before he published it. 

Wordsworth married, in the year 1803, Miss Mary Hutchinson, of Penrith, 
and settled among his beloved lakes, — first atGrasmere, and afterwards at Rydal 
Mount. Southey's subsequent retirement to the same beautiful country, and 
Coleridge's visits to his brother poets, originated the name of the "Lake School 
of Poetry," by which the opponents of their principles and the critics of the 
Edinhw^gh Review distinguished the three poets, whose names are so intimately 
connected. In 1807 he put forth two volumes of his poems, and in the autumn 
of 1814 appeared, in quarto form, the celebrated Excursion. It consists of 
sketches of life and manners taken during an excursion among the mountains, 
intermingled with moral and devotional reflections.^ It is merely a jjart of a 
larger poem, which was to be entitled The Recluse, and to be prefaced by a 



nt was published by Johnson, in St. Paul's 
Church Yard, from whose shop, but seven 
years before, had appeared the Task of Cowper. 

2 Mr. Cottle deserves to be held forever in 
the most grateful remembrance for the con- 
itant, unwearied kindness and liberality he 
Oiowed to Wordsworth and Coleridge. 

3 " All the world laughs at Elegiac Stanzas 
o a Sucking Pig — A Hymn on Washing-Day — 
bonnets to one's Gramlmother — or Pindarics 
')n Goosebi'rry-Pie : and yet we are afraid it 
vill not be quite easy to convince Mr. Words- 
vortli that the same ridicule mnst infallibly 
ittach to most of the pathetic pieces in these 
oluiiies.'" — Edinburgh Review, xi. 218. 

"We come next to a long story of a Blind 
highland Bny, who lived near an arm of the 
ea, and had taken a most unnatural desire to 
enture on that perilous element. His mother 
lid all she could to prevent him ; but one 
Homing, when the good woman was out of 
he way, he got into a vessel of his own, and 
>ushed out from the shore : — 

' In such a vessel ne'er before 
Did human creatui-e leave the shore.' 



And then we are told that if the sea should 
get rough. ' a beehive would be ship as safe.' 
'But say what was it?' a poetical interlocutor 
is made to exclaim most naturally; and here 
followeth the answer, upon which all the 
pathos and interest of the story depend : — 

' A HOUSEHOLD TUB, like one of those 
Which women use to wash their clothes ! !' 

This, it will be admitted, is carrying the matter 
as far as it will well go ; nor is there any thing 
— down to the wiping of shoes, or the evisce- 
ration of chickens — which may not be intro- 
duced in poetry, if this is tolerated." — Ilnd, 
xi. 225. 

* See page 288. 

6 The author is in company with his friend 
the Wanderer, and in the course of their walks 
they meet with the Solitary, a soured and de- 
sponding recluse, and with the excellent vil- 
lage pastor, whose parochial experiences fur- 
nish materials for unlimited philosophizing. 
Long conversations, arguments, &c. form tho 
subject of this bulky poem. 



420 



WORDSWORTH. 



minor one delineating the growth of the author's mind, published since his 
death under the name of The Prelude.'^ The Recluse was to be divided into 
three parts : the Excursion forms the second of these ; the first book of the first 
part is extant in manuscript, but the rest of the work was never completed. 

No sooner did The Excursion appear, than the critics were down upon it with 
a vengeance. "This will never do," was the memorable opening of the article 
in the Edinburgh^ A few thought it "would do," and praised it; but while it 
was still dividing the critics, Peter Bell appeared, to throw among them yet 
greater differences of opinion. The deriders of the poet laughed still louder 
than before; while his admirers believed, or affected to believe, that it added 
to the author's fame. Another publication the next year. The White Doe of 
Pi/lstone, was even more severely handled by one party, while Avith "thel 
.school" it found still greater favor than any thing that he had written.^ In 
1820 he published his noble series of Sonnets to the River Duddon, which con- 
tains some of his best poetry. Two years after appeared his Ecclesiastical Son- ' 
nets, which were composed at the same time that Southey was writing his 
History of the Church. 

In 1831 he visited Scotland, and, on his way to the Lakes, had an aff'ecting 
interview — the last he ever had — with Sir Walter Scott, who was rapidly failing 
and was about to set off* for an Italian clime. The evening of the 22d of September 
was a very sad one in his antique library. Lockhart was there, and Allan, the 
historical painter. Wordsworth was also feeble in health, and sat with a greeu 
shade over his eyes, and bent shoulders, between his daughter and Sir Walter. ■ 
The conversation was melancholy, and Sir Walter remarked that Smollett and I 
Fielding had both been driven abroad by declining health and had never re- ' 
turned. Next morning he left Abbotsford, and his guests retired with sorrowful ; 
hearts. Wordsworth has preserved a memento of his own feelings in a beauti- i 
ful sonnet. In 1833 he visited Staff'a and lona. The year 1834 was a sort of * 
era in his life, by the publication of his complete works in four volumes. His ■ 
friends, howe-"er, now began to fall around him. That year poor Coleridge 
bade adieu to his weary life, which must have touched many a tender chord of 
association in Wordsworth's heart. In 1836, his wife's sister, and his constant 
friend and companion, died, and blow followed blow in rapid succession. 

As if to console him for the loss of so many that were dear to his heart, 
worldly honors began to be heaped upon him. In 1835 Blackwood's Magazine i 
came out strongly in his defence. In 1839, amid the acclamations of the 
students, he received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from Oxford Uni- 
versity. In 1842 he received a pension of £300 a year, with permission to 
resign his office of stamp-distributor in favor of his son. Next year he was 



1 The Prelude, is an autobiographical record 
of the remembered feelings and incidents of 
his iiilancy, boyhood, and adolescence ; of his 
experience at Cambridge, at London, and at 
Paris; and of his convictions regarding the 
causes and consequences of the first, and, p«»' 
excellence, the French Revolution, — wliose ulti- 
mate failure he mourns with unfeigned and 
undisguised regret. 

2 " Tliis will never do ! * * It is longer, 
weaker, and tamer than any of 3Ir. Words- 
worth's other productions; with less boldness 
of originality, and less even of that extreme 
simplicity uud lowliuods of tone which wavered 



so prettily, in the Lyrical Ballads, between silli- 
ness and pathos." — Edinburgh lievieiv,\xiv. 1. 
3 "This, we think, has the merit of being 
the very worst poem we ever saw imprinted in 
a quarto volume ; and though it was scarcely 
to be expected, we confess, that Mr. Words- 
worth, with all his ambition, should so soon 
have attained to that distinction, the wonder 
may, perhaps, be diminished when we state 
that it seems to us to consist of a happy union 
of all the laults, without any of the beauties, 
which belong to his school of poetry."— iWt^- 
XXV. iJSS. 



I 



WORDSWORTH. 



421 



appointed to the laureateship left vacant by the melancholy death of South ey. 
After this he lived a quiet and dignified life at Rydal, evincing little apparent 
sympathy with the arduous duties and activities of the every-day world, — a 
world which he left, calmlj- and peacefully, at a good old age, on the 23d of 
April, 1850. 

No author in the English language has so divided the critics as William 
Wordsworth. A few^ place him in the first class of our poets; while the largo 
majority, certainly, of readers see nothing in his poetry that can fairly givo 
him such a rank. Gladly Avould I add my humble testimony in unison with 
that of his ardent admirers, if I honestly could; but, whether right or wrong, 
I cannot.2 I cheerfully grant that his style is simple and often vigorous: that 
his versification is smooth and easy ; that his blank verse is manly and 
idiomatic; that he shows great power of minute and faithful description; and 
that his poetry is everywhere pervaded with sentiments of pure morality and 
deep wisdom, such' as must ever exert the happiest moral influence. And yet 
he never moves me ; there is no passion in him ; there seems to be a want of 
naturalness in most that he has written ; he never warms me to admiration, 
or melts me to tenderness. Southey himself has, to my mind, well expressed 
the real fault of both his mystical brethren: — "Both Coleridge and Words- 
worth, powerfully as they can write, and profoundly as they usually think, 
have been betrayed into the same fault, — that of making things easy of com- 
prehension in themselves, difficult to be comprehended by their way of stating 
them. Instead of going to the natural springs for water, they seem to like the 
labor of digging wells." ^ 

The following estimate of his character, from a recent critic,^ seems to me 
very just: — "His devotion to external nature had the power and pervasive- 
ness of a passion; his perception of its most minute beauties was exquisitely 
fine; and his portraitures, both of landscapes and figures, were so distinctly 
outlined as to impress them on the mind almost as vividly and deeply as the 
sight of them could have done. But he was defective in the stronger passions, 
and hence, in spite of the minuteness of his portraitures of character, he failed 
to produce real human beings capable of stirring the blood; and what was 



1 And they are no less names than Professor 
Wilson, De Quincey, Lockhart, Coleridge, and 
Talfourd. 

2 Lord Jeffrey, in republishing a portion of 
his Omtributimis to the Edinburgh Review, thus 
writes, in a note to the article on Wordsworth's 
Excursion, thirty years after the article first 
appeared : — 

" I have spoken in many places rather too 
bitterly and confidently of the faults of Mr. 
Wordsworth's poetry, and forgetting that, even 



in my old age and his, I should include in this 
publication any of those critiques which maj- 
have formerly given pain or offence to him or 
his admirers. But, when I reflected that the 
mischief, if there really ever was any, was long 
ago done, and that I still retain, in substance, 
the opinions which I should now like to have 
seen more gently expressed, I felt that to omit 
all notice of them on the present occasion 
might be held to import a retraction which I 
am as far as possible from intending, or even 



on my own view of them, they were but faults I be represented as a very shabbj' way of back- 



of taste, or venial self-partiality, have some- 
times visited them, I fear, with an asperity 
which should be reserved for objects of moral 
reprobation. If I were now to deal with the 
whole question of his poetical merits, thoiigh 
my judgment might not be substantially dif- 
ferent, I hope I should repress the greater part 
of these vivacites of expression ; and, indeed, 
so strong has been my feeling in this way that, 
considering how much I have always loved 
many of the attributes of his genius, and liow 
entirely I respect his character, it did at first 
occur to me wbethei- it was quite fitting that. 



ing out of sentiments which should either be 
manfully persisted in, or openly renounced 
and abandoned as untenable." 

3 " This from a friend and a member of the 
brotherhood is nearly as severe," says a writer 
in the North British Review, "as any thing 
Jeffrey ever said of them." Sir Walter Scott, 
too, exi)resse8 his wonder " why Wordsworth 
will sometimes choose to crawl upon all-fours, 
when God has given him so noble a counte- 
nance to lift to heaven." 

4 (Jhambers'a Papers for the People., vol. v. 



36 



422 



WORDSWORTH. 



even more serious, lie himself was incapacitated from feeling a genial and 
warm sympathy in the struggles of modern man, on whom he rather looked 
as from a distant height with the commiseration of some loftier nature. From 
the characteristics enumerated arose the great faults of his works. His land- 
scape paintings are often much too minute. He dwells too tediously on every 
small object and detail, and from his over-intense appreciation of them, which 
magnifies their importance, rejects all extrinsic ornaments, and occasionally, 
though exceptionally, adopts a style bare and meagre, and even phrases tainted 
with mean associations. Hence all his personages — being without realit}-- — 
fail to attract^ and even his strong domestic affections, and his love for every 
thing pure and simple, do not give a sufficient human interest to his poems. 
His prolixity and tediousness are aggravated by a want of artistic skill in 
construction 5 and it is owing to this that he is most perfect in the sonnet, 
which renders the development of these faults an impossibility, while it gives 
free play to his naturally pure, tasteful, and lofty diction. His imagination 
was majestic; his fancy lively and sparkling; and he had a refined and Attic 
humor, which, however, he seldom called into exercise." ^ 

TIN TERN ABBEY: THOUGHTS ON REVISITING THE WYE.^ , 

How oft, 
In darkness, and amid the many shapes 
Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir 
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, 
How oft in spirit have I turn'd to thee, 

sylvan Wye ! — thou wanderer through the woods, — 
How often ha? my spirit turn'd to tliee ! 

And noAV, with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought, 

With many recognitions dim and faint, 

And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 

The picture of tlie mind revives again : 

While here I stand, not only with the sense 

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 

That in this moment there is life and food 

For future years. And so I dare to hope, 

Though clianged. no doubt, from what I was wlien first 

1 came among these hills; Avhen, like a roe, 
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides 
Of the deep rivers and the lonely streams, 
Wherever nature led : more like a man 
Flying from something that he dreads, than one 
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then 
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days 

And their glad animal movements all gone by) 



1 Read F. "VY. Robertson's article on Words- 
worth, in his Lectures and Essays, which, a 
loving disciple of the poet says, "is dictated 
by a mind singularly clear in its analytical 
insight, and by a heart whose Just and delicate 
instincts are the best aesthetic criteria. The 
truest idea of AVordsworth's position and powers 
is to be gained from this refined, affectionate, 
uud reverential study of hia works." Read 



also an instructive semi-historical essay upon 
Wordsworth by David Masson, in his Essays, 
Bingrajyliical and Critical ; also Professor Wil- 
son's fine article in his Essays ; also an article 
by our own Whipple, in his Essays and Re- 
views, vol. i. p. 222. 

2 These lines were composed in the neigh- 
borhood of that finest ruin in all England,— 
TiNTEBN Abbey. 



WORDSWORTH. 423 

To me was all in all,— I cannot paint 

What then I was. The sounding cataract 

Haunted me like a passion ; the tall rock, 

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 

Their colors and their forms, were then to me 

An appetite ; a feeling and a love 

That had no need of a remoter charm, 

By thought supplied, or any interest 

Unborrow'd from the eye. That time is past, 

And all its aching joys are now no more, 

And all its dizzy mptures. Not for this 

Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur ; other gifts 

Have follow' d, for such loss, I would believe. 

Abundant recompense. For I have learn'd 

To look on nature, not as in the hour 

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 

The still sad music of humanity, 

Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power 

To chasten and subdue. And 1 have felt 

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 

Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 

Of something far more deeply interfused. 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

And the round ocean, and the living air. 

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 

A motion and a spirit that impels 

All thinking things, all objects of all thought 

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 

A lover of the meadows and the woods 

And mountains, and of all that we behold 

From this green earth : of all the mighty world 

Of eye and ear, both what they half create^ 

And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise 

In nature, and the language of the sense, 

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse. 

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 

Of all my moral being. 

Nor, perchance, 
If I were not thus taught, should I the more 
Suffer my genial spirits to decay : 
For thou art with me here, upon the banks 
Of this fair river ; thou, my dearest friend. 
My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch 
The language of my former heart, and read 
My former pleasures in the shooting lights 
Of thy wild eyes. Oh, yet a little while 
Mav i behold in thee what I was once, 
My" dear, dear sister ! And this prayer I make, 
Knowing that nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege. 
Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
From joy to joy ; for she can so inform 
The mind that is within us, so impress 
With quietness and beaut v, and so feed 
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues. 
Bash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 



424 



WORDSWORTH. 



Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 

The dreary intercourse of daily life, 

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 

Our cheerful faith that all which we behold 

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; 

And let the misty mountain winds be free 

To blow against thee ; and in after years, 

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 

Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind 

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 

For all sweet sounds and harmonies ; oh, then, 

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, 

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 

And these my exhortations ! Nor, perchance, 

If I should be where I no more can hear 

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams 

Of past existence, wilt thou then forget 

That on the banks of this delightful stream 

We stood together ; and that I, so long 

A worshipper of nature, hither came. 

Unwearied in that service : rather say 

With warmer love, oh, with far deeper zeal 

Of holier love ! Nor wilt thou then forget. 

That after many wanderings, many years 

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me 

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake. 



TO A SKYLARK.^ 

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! 

Dost thou despise the earth, where cares abound? 
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? 
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will. 
Those quivering wings composed, that music still ! 

To the last point of vision, and beyond, 

Mount, daring warbler I — that love-prompted strain 
('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) 

Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain : 
Yet might' st thou seem,^ proud privilege ! to sing 
All independent of the leafy spring. 

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; 
A privacy of glorious light is thine ; 



^ " It is difficult to conceive any thing more 
exquisitely graceful than these lines; the last 
two especially, and that beginning, ' A privacy 
of,' &c. may be characterized as perfect." 

2 "J'ei mighVst thou seem, &c. — i.e. yet you 



mount so high that you might seem to have 
lost all connection with earth, and not to be 
inspired by the genial influences of spring, 
which prompts the songs of other birds." — 
Payne. 



WORDSWORTH. 425 

Wlience thou dost pour upon the world a flood 

Of harmony, with instinct more divine; 
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ; 
True to the kindred points of heaven and home ! 



PORTRAIT.^ 

She was a phantom of delight 
When first she gleam'd upon my sight; 
A lovely apparition, sent 
To be a moment's ornament ; 
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair \ 
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair ; 
But all things else about her drawn 
From May-time and the cheerful daAvn ; 
A dancing shape, an image gay, 
To haunt, to startle, and waylay. 

I saw her upon nearer view, 
A spirit, yet a Avoman too ! 
Her household motions light and free, 
And steps of virgin liberty ; 
A countenance in which did meet 
Sweet records,^ promises as sweet ; 
A creature not too bright or good 
For human nature's daily food ', 
For transient sorrows, simple wiles. 
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 

And now I see with eye serene 
The very pulse of the machine ; 
A being" breathing thoughtful breath, 
A traveller between life and death ; 
The reason firm, the temperate will, 
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill, 
A perfect woman, nobly plann'd. 
To warn, to comfort, and command ; 
And yet a spirit still, and bright 
With something of an angel light. 



ODE TO DUTY. 

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God I 
O Duty ! if that name thou love 

Who art a Light to guide, a Rod 
To check the erring, and reprove ; 

Thou, who art victory and law 

When empty terrors overawe ; 

From vain temptations dost set free, 
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity 1 



1 Rarely, if ever, has a more lively picture 
been drawn of woman in her threefold rela- 
tion of the beautiful, the social, and the 
spiritual. 



2 Records (from the Latin rg, " again," and 
cor, "the heart") is here a very expressive 
word,— meaning something that the heart and 
mind dwells upon, — an authentic memorial 
of the past. 
36* 



426 WORDSWORTH. 

There are who ask not if thine eye 

Be on them — who, in love and truth, 
Where no misgiving is, rely 

Upon the genial sense of youth : 
Glad hearts I without reproach or blot ; 
"Who do thy work, and know it not : 
Long may the kindly impulse last ! 
But Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast I 

Serene will be our days and bright, 

And happy will our nature be, 
When love is an unerring light. 

And joy its own security. 
And they a blissful course may hold 
Even now, who, not unwisely bold. 
Live in the spirit of this creed ; 
Yet find that other strength, according to their need. 

* ^ * ^ 45- * 

Stem Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 

Kor know we any thing so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face : 

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds ; 

And Fragrance in thy footing treads ; 

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. 

To humbler functions, awful Power ! 

I call thee: I myself commend 
L^nto thy guidance from this hour : 

Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 
Give unto me, made lowly wise. 
The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
The confidence of reason give. 
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live 1 

WE ARE SEVEN. 

A simple child, 
That lightly draws its breath, 
And feels its life in every limb, 
^\Tiat should it know of death? 

I met a little cottage girl ; 

She was eight years old, she said ; 
Her hair was thick with many a curl 

That cluster' d round her head. 

She had a rustic woodland air. 

And she was wildly clad ; 
Her eyes were fair, and very fair, — 

Her beauty made me glad. 

" Sisters and brothers, little maid, 

How many may you be ?" 
" How many ? Seven in all," she said. 

And wondering look'd at me. 



WORDSWORTH. 427 

" And where are they ? I pray you tell." 

She answer'd, " Seven are we ; 
And two of us at Conway dwell, 

And two are gone to sea. 

"Two of us in the churchyard lie, 

My sister and my brother ; 
And in the churchyard-cottage, I 

Dwell near them, with my mother." 

" You say that two at Conway dwell, 

And two are gone to sea, 
Yet ye are seven ! I pray you tell, 

Sweet maid, how this may be ?" 

Then did the little maid reply, 

*' Seven boys and girls are we ; 
Two of us in the churchyard lie. 

Beneath the churchyard tree." 

" You run about, my little maid, 

Your limbs they are alive ; 
If two are in the churchyard laid. 

Then ye are only five." 

" Their graves are green, they may be seen," 

The little maid replied, 
" Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, 

And they are side by side. 

" My stockings there I often knit, 

My kerchief there I hem, 
And there upon the ground I sit — 

I sit and sing to them. 

" And often after sunset, sir, 

When it is light and fair, 
I take my little porringer. 

And eat my supper there. 

" The first that died was little Jane ; 

In bed she moaning lay, 
Till God released her of her pain. 

And then she went away. 

" So in the churchyard she was laid ; 

And when the grass was dry. 
Together round her grave we play'd — 

My brother John and I. 

■ "And when the ground was white with snow, 
And I could run and slide, 
My brother John was forced to go, — 
And he lies by her side." 

" How many are you then," said I, 

" If they two are in heaven ?" 
The little "maiden did reply, 

"O master, we are seven." 



428 



WORDSWORTH. 



" But they are dead ; tliose two are dead ! 

Their spirits are in heaven !" 
'Twas throwing words away ; for still 
The little maid would have her will, 

And said, " Nay, we are seven !" 



OUB IMMORTALITY.^ 
Intimations of Immortality from recollections of early childhood. 

The Child is Father of the Man; 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety. 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 
The Soul that rises Avith us, our life's Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting. 
And cometh from afar : 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home: 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy ; 
The Youth, who daily farther from the east 

Must travel, still is nature's priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended ; 
At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; 

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind. 

And, even with something of a mother's mind, 
And no unworthy aim. 
The homely nurse doth all she can' 

To make her foster-child, her inmate man. 
Forget the glories he hath known. 

And that imperial palace whence he came. 



Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 

Thy soul's immensity ; 
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep 
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind. 



1 " In the mighty effort of his imagination — 
the greatest ode in the English language, — the 
Ode on the Intimations of lynmortality , dwelling 
upon the heavenly innocence of childhood, — a 
feeling in harmony with the Savior's words; 
and then, raising the human soul above its 
material life, he has cast a ray of poetry upon 



the most impenetrable of all mysteries,— th't 
origin of the soul before its lodgment in th 
body. Thus sublimely asserting our imnio; 
tality, he heeds this earth as no more tha, 
ministering to the spirit that has wandere, 
from some better home into this mortal life:-' 
" Our birth," &c.— Henry Reed. 



WORDSWORTH. ■ 429 

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, 
Haunted forever by the eternal mind, — 

Mighty prophet ! seer blest ! 

On whom those truths do rest, 
Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; 
Thou, over whom thy immortality 
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, 
A presence which is not to be put by ; 
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight, 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life ! 

O joy ! that in our embers 
Is something that doth live, 

That nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive ! 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benediction : not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest; 
Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, 
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast : 

Not for these I raise 

The song of thanks and praise ; 



But for those first affections. 
Those shadowy recollections, 
Which, be they what they may, 
Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing ; 

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal silence : truths that wake, 

To perish never ; 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor. 

Nor man nor boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
Can utterly abolish or destroy ! 

Hence, in a season of calm weather, 
Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither. 
Can in a moment travel thither, 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 



430 • WORDSWORTH. 



THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US. 

The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 

Getting and sj)ending, we lay waste our powers ; 

Little we see in nature that is ours ; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, 

The winds that will be howling at all hours, 

And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers ; 
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune ; 

It moves us not. Great God ! I'd rather be 
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 



SCORN NOT THE SONNET. 

Scorn not the Sonnet : Critic, you have frown' d, 

Mindless of its just honors : with this key 

Shakspeare unlock' d his heart ; the melody 
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; 
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; 

Camoens soothed with it an exile's grief; 

The sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf 
Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd 

His visionary brow : a gloAV-worm lamp, 
It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from faery-land 

To struggle through dark ways ; and, when a damp 
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 

The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 

Soul-animating strains — alas, too few ! 



BIILTON. 

Milton ! thou should' st be living at this hour ; 

England hath need of thee ; she is a fen 

Of stagnant waters ; altar, sword, and pen, 
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
Have forfeited their ancient English dower 

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; 

Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

Thy soul Avas like a star, and dwelt apart ; 
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea ; 
Pure as the naked heavens — majestic, free, 
So didst thou travel on life's common way 

In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
The lowliest duties on herself didst lay. 



BOWLES. 



431 



TO THOMAS CLARKSON, ON THE FINAL PASSING OF THE BILL 
FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE, 3IARCH, 1S07. 

Clarkson ! it was an obstinate hill to climb : 
How toilsome — nay, hoAv dire it was, by thee 
Is known, — by none, perhaps, so feelingly ; 

But thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime, 

Didst first lead forth this pilgrimage sublime, 
Hast heard the constant voice its charge repeat, 
Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat, 

First roused thee. O true yoke-fellow of time, 
With unabating effort, see, the palm 

Is Avon, and by all nations shall be worn ! 

The bloody writing is forever torn. 

And thou henceforth shalt have a good man's calm, 

A great man's happiness ; thy zeal shall find 

Repose at length, firm friend of human kind ! 



WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, 1762-1850. 

William Lisle Bowles, son of the Rev. William T. Bowles, vicar of King's- 
Sutton, Northamptonshire, was born at that place on the 25th of September, 
1762. In 1776 he was placed on the Wykeham foundation at Winchester,* 
under Dr. Joseph Warton.2 Naturally a timid, diffident boy, he ever expressed 
a grateful obligation to the kind encouragement he received from that eminent 
man, who sympathized very cordially with any manifestation of poetic talents. 
During his last year at Winchester, he was at the head of the schoob and in 
consequence of this distinction he was elected, in 1781, a scholar of Trinity 
College, Oxford. In 1783 he gained the chancellor's prize for Latin verse, the 
subject being Calpe Obsessa, TJie Siege of Gibraltar. In 1789 he published 
twenty of his beautiful sonnets, which were followed in the same year by 
Verses to John Howard, and in 1790 by The Grave of Howard. These and other 
poetical works were collected in 1796, and so well were they received that 
repeated editions were published. In 1797 he was married to Magdalen, 
daughter of the Rev. Charles Wake, prebendary of Westminster. She died 
some years before him, leaving Jito children. Having entered the ministry, 
he obtained the vicarage of Bremhill^ in 1805, which was his constant resi- 
dence for forty years, during which long period he had watched zealously 



1 Winchester, about sixty-seven miles south- 
west from London, is one of the oldest cities 
of England. It became the capital of the 
country when it was united under the sway 
of Egbert. Here lie the bones of Alfred the 
Qreat; here, in 1002, commenced the horrid 
massatTe of the Danes ; here William the Con- 
queror briilt a castle and palace; here King 
John ratified his ignominious submission to 
the Pope ; and here was the scene of the dis- 
graceful trial of Sir Walter Raleigh. Indeed, 
it is full of memorable historic associations. 



The most interesting building here is Wyke- 
ham College, which takes its name from Wil- 
liam of Wykeham. originally a poor boy of 
the neighboring town of Wykeham. who was 
educated in the old grammar-school of Win- 
.chester, on the very spot where the college 
now stands. This was begun in 1387, and com- 
pleted in six years. It has a large revenue, 
and accommodates about one hundred boys. 

2 See his life at p. 17. 

3 A town in Wiltshire, about seventy-seven 
miles west from London. 



432 



BOWLES. 



over the spiritual interests of his flock. In 1845 he became a canon resi- 
dentiary of Salisbury Cathedral, and resided there till the day of his death, 
April 6, 1850. 

His character was one of great benevolence and purity, and, at the same 
time, of great eccentricity. He rarely quitted Bremhill. Now and then he 
visited London, where he seemed as much out of place as " a daisy in a con- 
servatory." ^ An idea of his loneliness amid the peopled solitude of the metro- 
polis is given by an anecdote related by the wife of the poet Moore : — " Bowles waa 
in the habit of daily riding through a country turnpike, and one day he pre- 
sented, as usual, his twopence to the gatekeeper. 'What is that for, sir?' he 
asked. 'For my horse, of course.' 'But, sir, you have no horse.' 'Dear me!' 
exclaimed the astonished poet, 'am I walking?'" Mrs. Moore also said that 
Bowles gave her a Bible as a birthday-present. She asked him to write her 
name in it: he did so, inscribing it to her as a gift— from the author. He said 
himself, "I never had but one watch, and I lost it the first day I wore it." 
The poet Moore says of him, "What with his genius, his blunders, his absences, 
he is the most delightful of all existing persons or poets;" and Southey writes ■ 
of him, "His oddity, his untidiness, his simplicity, his benevolence, his fears, 
and his good nature, make him one of the most entertaining and extraordinary 
characters I ever met with." 

It would be difficult to enumerate all of Mr. Bowles's publications; but the 
following are his principal poems. The Battle of the Nile, published in 1799; 
The Sorrows of Switzerland, in 1801; The Spirit of Discovery, or Conquest of 
Ocean, in 1805; The Missionary of the Andes, in J 815; The Grave of the Last 
Saxon, in 1822; St. John in Patmos, in 1832. His last poetical compositions 
were contained in a volume published in 1837, entitled Scenes and Shadows of 
Lays Departed, a Narrative ; accompanied with Poems of Youth, and some other 
Poems of Melancholy and Fancy, in the Journey of Life from Youth to Age. He 
also printed several editions of a pleasing little volume of simple poetry, 
entitled The Village Verse-Book, written to excite in the youthful mind the first 
feelings of religion and humanity, from familiar rural objects.''^ 

Mr. Bowles is probably more indebted for his fame to his Sonnets than to 
any of his other writings. Of these, Mr. Hallam, in an address delivered at 
the anniversary of the Royal Society of Literature, thus speaks: — "The Sonnets 
of Bowles may be reckoned among the first-fruits of a new era in poetry. 
They came in an age when a commonplace facility in rhyming on the one 
hand, and an almost nonsensical aff"ectation in a new school on the other, had 
lowered the standard so much that critical judges spoke of English poetry as 
of something nearly extinct, and disdained to read what they were sure to 
disapprove. In these sonnets there was observed a grace of expression, a 



1 "That was his own simile during one of 
my conversations with this eccentric but be- 
nevolent clergvniiin." — S. C. Hall. 

2 In 1807 Mr. Bowles edited Tlie Works of 
Alexander Pope, in Verse and Prose, in ten 
volumes ; and in this labor (it would seem not 
of love) he disi)layed, as editor, what is rather 
a singular phenomenon in the literary world* 
prepossessions adverse to the claims and merits 
of his author. He laid down this proposition 
as a universal truth, " that all images drawn 
from what is beautiful or sublime iu the works 
of nature are more beautiful and sublime than 



any images drawn from art; and that they art 
therefore, j)er se, more poetical." The trutl 
of this dogma was of course warmly disputed 
and Campbell, BjTon, and others entered int( 
the contest in behalf of Pope. The latter, : 
think, had the better of the argument: i 
pyramid may raise as strong emotions in thi 
breast as the mountain ; and, as Byron said, ! 
ship in the wind, with all sail set, is a mor; 
poetical object than "a hog in the wind,' 
though the "hog is all nature, and the ship al 
art. 



I 



BOWLES. 433 

musical versification, and especially an air of melancholy tenderness, so con- 
genial to the poetical temperament, which still, after sixty years of a more 
propitious period than that which immediately preceded their publication, 
preserves for their author a highly respectable position among our poets." It 
may be added that his Sonnets so powerfully impressed the poetic sensibility 
of Coleridge before he left school, that he made forty transcripts of them with 
his own pen, by way of presents to his youthful friends; and in mature life 
he expressed his approbation of them in a sonnet of his own. 



SONNET AT OSTEND. 

How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal ! 
As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze 
Breathes on the trembling sense of wan disease, 

So piercing to my heart their force I feel ! 

And hark ! with lessening cadence now they fall, 
And now, along the white and level tide, 
They fling their melancholy music wide ; 

Bidding me many a tender thought recall 
Of summer-days, and those delightful years 

When by my native streams, in life's fair prime, 

The mournful magic of their mingling chime 
First waked my wondering childhood into tears, 

But seeming now, when all those days are o'er, 

The sounds of joy once heard, and heard no more. 



SONNET ON THE RHINE. 

'Twas morn, and beauteous on the mountain's brow 
(Hung with the beamy clusters of the vine) 
Stream'd the blue light, when on the sparkling Khine 

We bounded, and the white waves round the prow 

In murmurs parted : varying as we go, 
Lo ! the woods open, and the rocks retire, 
Some convent's ancient walls, or glistening spire, 

'Mid the bright landscape's track, unfolding slow. 

Here dark, with furrow' d aspect, like despair, 

Frowns the bleak cliff, — there on the woodland's side 
The shadowy sunshine pours its streaming tide ; 

Whilst hope, enchanted with the scene so fair, 
Would wish to linger many a summer's day, 
Nor heeds how fast the prospect winds away. 



SONNET TO TIME. 

Time ! who know'st a lenient hand to lay 
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence 
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) 

The faint pang stealest, unperceived, away ; 

On thee I rest my only hope at last, 

And think when thou hast dried the bitter tear 
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, 

1 may look back on every sorrow past, 

37 



434 



BOWLES. 



And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile, — 
As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, 
Sings in the sunbeam of the transient shower, 

Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while ; 
Yet, ah ! how much must that poor heart endure 
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure ! 

SONNET TO SU3IMER. 

How shall I meet thee. Summer, wont to fill 
My heart with gladness, when thy pleasant tide 
First came, and on each coomb's romantic side 

Was heard the distant cuckoo's hollow bill ? 

Fresh flowers shall fringe the wild brink of the stream, 
As with the songs of joyance and of hope 
The hedge-rows shall ring loud, and on the slope 

The poplars sparkle in the transient beam ; 

The shrubs and laurels which I loved to tend, 
Thinking their May -tide fragrance might delight, 

With many a peaceful charm, thee, my best friend, 
Shall put forth their green shoot, and cheer the sight I 

But I shall mark their hues with sickening eyes, 

And weep for her who in the cold grave lies ! 

SONNET TO HOPE. 

As one who, long by wasting sickness worn, 

Weary has watch'd the lingering night, and heard, 
Heartless, the carol of the matin bird 

Salute his lonely porch, now first at morn 

Goes forth, leaving his melancholy bed ; 

He the green slope and level meadow views, 
Delightful bathed in slow ascending dews ; 

Or marks the clouds that o'er the mountain's head, 

In varying forms, fantastic wander white ; 
Or turns his ear to every random song 
Heard the green river's winding marge along, % 

The whilst each sense is steep'd in still delight : 

With such delight o'er all my heart I feel. 

Sweet Hope ! tliy fragrance pure and healing incense steal. 

TO HIS EARLY BELOVED.^ 

When last we parted, thou wert young and fair ; 

How beautiful, let fond remembrance say ! 

Alas ! since then old Time has stolen away 
Nigh forty years, leaving my temples bare : 
So hath it perish' d, like a thing of air. 

That dream of love and youth ; — we now are gray ; 

Yet still remembering youth's enchanted way. 



1 Before the publication of his Sonnets, 
Bowles wooed a Miss Romilly, a niece of Sir 
Samuel Romilly, but was rejected: wherefore 
he took to rhyming and to rambling, and, in 
order to deaden his feelings, traversed the 
north of England and Scotland, and in parts 
of the Continent. Late in life he unexpectedly 



met the lady of his earliest love, and has left 
us this charming sonnet in commemoration 
of the incident; thus showing that, in a true 
poet's heart at least, love never dies : it is a 
shrine that everlastingly retains the imaga U 
has once idolized. 



BOWLES. 435 

Though time has changed my look and blanch'd my hair, 
Though I remember one sad hour with pain, 

And never thought, long as I yet might live, 
And parted long, to hear that voice again ; 

I can a sad, but cordial, greeting give, 
And for thy welfare breathe as warm a prayer. 
Lady, as when I loved thee, young and fair. 



LINES ON THE POOR BLIND MAN OF SALISBURY CATHEDRAL, 

There is a poor blind man, who, every day. 

Through frost and snow, in sunshine and in rain, 
Duly as tolls the bell, to the high fane 

Explores, with faltering footsteps, his dark way, 
To kneel before his Maker, and to hear 
The solemn service chanted full and clear. 

Ask why, alone, in the same spot he kneels 

Through the long year ? Oh, the wide world is cold 

And dark to him, but here no more he feels 
His sad bereavement : Faith and Hope uphold 

His heart ; amid the tumult of Mankind 

He droops no longer : lone, and poor, and blind, 

His soul is in the choirs above the skies, 

And songs, far off, of angel harmonies. 

Oh, happy if the vain, the rich, the proud — 

The pageant actors of life's motley crowd — 

Would drop the mask, the moral prospect scan, 

And learn one lesson from a poor blind man. 



THE BELLS OF OSTEND. 

No, I never, till life and its shadows shall end, 
Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend ! 
The day set in darkness, the wind it blew loud. 
And rung as it pass'd through each murmuring shroud. 
My forehead was wet with the foam of the spray, 
My heart sigh'd in secret for those far away ; 
When slowly the morning advanced from the east. 
The toil and the noise of the tempest had ceased : 
The peal from a land I ne'er saw, seem'd to say, 
" Let the stranger forget every sorrow to-day !" 

Yet the short-lived emotion was mingled with pain, — 
I thought of those eyes I should ne'er see again ; 
^I thought of the kiss, the last kiss which I gave. 
And a tear of regret fell unseen on the wave ; 
I thought of the schemes fond affection had plann'd, 
Of the trees, of the towers, of my own native land. 
But still the sweet sounds, as they swell'd to the air, 
Seem'd tidings of pleasure, though mournful, to bear, 
And I never, till life and its shadows shall end. 
Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend ! 



436 JOANNA BAILLIE. 



JOANNA BAILLIE, 1762-185L 

This distinguished poetess, "whose literary life stretches back into the last | 
century, and whose early recollections were of the days of Burke, Johnson, ,; 
Goldsmith, and Reynolds, was the daughter of a Scottish clergyman, and was I 
born at Bothwell, on the banks of the Clyde, in the year 1762. During the j 
greater part of her life she lived with a maiden sister, Agnes, — also a poetess,— j 
to whom she addressed her beautiful " Birthday" poem. She early removed ' 
with her sister to London, where their brother, the late Sir Matthew Baillie, 
was settled as a physician; and there her earliest poetical works appeared • 
anonymously. Her first dramatic efforts were published in 1798, under the • 
title of A Series of Plays: in which it is attempted to Delineate the Stronger Pas- 
sions of the Mind, each Passion being the subject of a Tragedy and a Comedy. To i 
the volume was prefixed a long and interesting " Introductory Discourse," in i 
which the authoress discusses the subject of the drama in all its bearings, and I 
asserts the supremacy of simple nature over all decoration and refinement. 
She was then in her thirty-fourth year. A second volume was published in i 
1802, and a third in 1812. During the interval she gave the world a volume 
of miscellaneous dramas in 1804, and the Family Legend in 1810, — a tragedy i 
founded on Highland tradition, and which, principally through the efi'orts of 
Sir Walter Scott, was brought out at the Edinburgh Theatre. The only "Play 
of the Passions" ever represented on the stage was De Montfort, which was 
brought out by the celebrated actor John Kemble, and played for eleven 
nights. Though the best of her dramatic productions, it is deficient in those : 
lifelike, stirring scenes, and in that variety and fulness of passion, the "form \ 
and pressure" of everyday life, which are so essential to success on the stage. I 

In 1823 our authoress published a long-promised collection of Poetic Miscel- , 
lanies, and in 1836 three more volumes of plays. Besides these poetic produc- ! 
tions, she is the author of A View of the General Tenor of the New Testament 
regarding the Nature and Dignity of Jesus Christ. She also published Jfe^rica/ 
Legends of Eminent Characters, Fugitive Verses, and some less important publica- 
tions. She died on the 22d of February, 1851, retaining her faculties till the j 
last. Gentle and unassuming to all, with an unchangeable simplicity of man- 
ner and character, she counted among her friends many of the most celebrated 
for talent and genius; nor were the visitors to her modest home confined to 
the natives of her own country ; but many from various parts of Europe, and 
especially from our own land, sought introduction to one whose fame is com- , 
mensurate with the knowledge of English Literature.^ I 

A short time before her death. Miss Baillie completed an entire edition of ' 
her dramatic works. Upon these she laid out her chief strength. In their 
general character, they are marked by great originality and invention. Her 
knowledge of the human heart, of its wide range for good or evil, of its multi- 
farious, changeful, and wayward nature, was great, and her power of portray- 
ing character has rarely been excelled. Her female portraits are especially 
beautiful, and possess an unusual degree of elevation and purity. Though dis- ; 
tinguished chiefly for her dramatic writings, her lyric and miscellaneous poetry \ 

1 Read articles on Miss Baillie's Plays, in the second and sixty-seventh volumes of the 
Edinburgh Review. 



JOANNA BAILLIE. 437 

takes a high rank among similar productions of the present century. To great 
Bimplicity and womanly tenderness. of feeling, she unites at times a concise- 
ness and vigor of expression which are not often surpassed. A good idea of her 
various styles may be gathered from the following pieces : — 

DESCRIPTION OF JANE DE iWNTFORT.^ 

Page. Madam, there is a lady in your hall 
Who begs to be admitted to your presence. 

Lady. Is it not one of our invited friends ? 

Page. No ; far unlike to them. It is a stranger. 

Jjady. How looks her countenance ? 

Page. So queenly, so commanding, and so noble, 
I shrunk at ;first in awe ; but when she smiled, 
Methought I could have compassed sea and land 
To do her bidding. 

Lady. Is she young, or old ? 

Page. Neither, if right I guess; but she is fair, 
For Time hath laid his hand so gently on her. 
As he, too, had been awed. 

Lady. The foolish stripling ! 
She has bewitched thee. Is she large in stature ? 

Page. So stately and so graceful is her form, 
I thought at first her stature was gigantic ; 
But on a near approach, I found, in truth, 
She scarcely does surpass the middle size. 

Lady. What is her garb ? 

Page. I cannot well describe the fashion of it. 
She is not decked in any gallant trim, 
But seems to me clad in her usual weeds 
Of high habitual state ; for as she moves, 
Wide flows her robe in many a waving fold, 
As I have seen unfurled banners play 
With the soft breeze. 

Lady. Thine eyes deceive thee, boy ; • 

It is an apparition thou hast seen. 

Freberg. [Starting from his seat, where lie has been sitting during 
the conversation between the Lady and the Page.^ 
It is an apparition he has seen, 
Or it is Jane de Montfort. 

THE KITTEN. 

Wanton droll, whose harmless play 
Beguiles the rustic's closing day, 
When drawn the evening fire about. 
Sit aged Crone and thoughtless Lout, 
And child upon his three foot stool, 
Waiting till his supper cool ; 
And maid, whose cheek outblooms the rose, 
As bright the blazing fagot glows, 
Who, bending to the friendly light, 
Plies her task with busy sleight ; 
Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces. 
Thus circled round with merry faces. 



1 This has been pronounced a perfect picture of Mrs. Siddons, the actress. 
37* 



438 JOANNA BAILLIE. 

Backward coil'd, and crouching low, 
With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe, 
The housewife's spindle whirling round, 
Or thread, or straw, that on the ground 
Its shadow throws, by urchin sly 
Held out to lure thy roving eye ; 
Then onward stealing, fiercely spring 
Upon the futile, faithless thing. 
Now, wheeling round, with bootless skill, 
Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still, 
As oft beyond thy curving side 
Its jetty tip is seen to glide; 
Till, from thy centre starting fair, 
Thou sidelong rear'st, with rump in air, 
Erected stiff, and gait awry. 
Like madam in her tantrums high : 
Though ne'er a madam of them all, 
Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall, 
More varied trick and whim displays. 
To catch the admiring stranger's gaze. 
■3fr -at . * * * 

The featest tumbler, stage-bedight. 
To thee is but a clumsy wight, 
Who every limb and sinew strains 
To do what costs thee little pains ; 
For which, I trow, the gaping crowd 
Requites him oft with plaudits loud. 
But, stopp'd the while thy wanton play. 
Applauses, too, thy feats repay : 
For then beneath some urchin's hand 
With modest pride thou tak'st thy stand. 
While many a stroke of fondness glides 
Along thy back and tabby sides. 
Dilated swells thy glossy fur, 
And loudly sings thy busy purr, 
As, timing well the equal sound, 
Thy clutching feet bepat the ground. 
And all their harmless claws disclose. 
Like prickles of an early rose ; 
While softly from thy whisk er'd cheek 
Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek. 

But not alone by cottage fire 
Do rustics rude thy feats admire ; 
The learned sage, whose thoughts explore 
The widest range of human lore. 
Or, with unfetter' d fancy, fly 
Through airy heights of poesy. 
Pausing, smiles with alter'd air 
To see thee climb his elbow-chair, 
Or, struggling on the mat below. 
Hold warfare with his slipper'd toe. 
The widow' d dame, or lonely maid. 
Who in the still but cheerless shade 
Of home unsocial spends her age, 
And rarely turns a letter' d page; 



JOANNA BAILLIE. 439 

Upon her hearth for thee lets fall 
The rounded cork, or paper ball, 
Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch 
The ends of ravell'd skein to catch, 
But lets thee have thy wayward will, 
Perplexing oft her sober skill. 
Even he, whose mind of gloomy bent, 
In lonely tower or prison pent. 
Reviews the coil of former days. 
And loatlies the world and all its ways ; 
What time the lamp's unsteady gleam 
Doth rouse him from his moody dream, 
Feels, as thou gambol'st round his seat. 
His heart with pride less fiercely beat, 
And smiles, a link in thee to find 
That joins him still to living kind. 
•Sfr * ^ ^ * 

Nor, when thy span of life is past, 
Be thou to pond or dunghill cast ; 
But, gently borne on good man's spade, 
Beneath the decent sod be laid. 
And children show, with glistening eyes. 
The place where jjoor old Pussy lies. 

HORNING SONG. 

Up ! quit thy bower ; late wears the hour ; 
Long have the rooks caw'd round thy tower ; 
On flower and tree loud hums the bee ; 
The wilding kid sports merrily : 
A day so bright, so fresh, so clear, 
Showeth when good fortune's near. 

Up ! lady fair, and braid thy hair, 
And bathe thee in the breezy air ; 
The rolling stream that soothed thy dream 
Is dancing in the sunny beam ; 
And hours so sweet, so bright, so gay, 
Will waft good fortune on its way. 

Up ! time will tell : the friar's bell 
Its service sound hath chimed well ; 

The aged crone keeps house alone, * 

And reapers to the fields are gone ; 
The active day, so fair and bright, 
May bring good fortune ere the night. 



THE OLD SOLDIER. 

The night comes on apace ; 
Chill blows the blast, and drives the snow in wreaths ; 
Now every creature looks around for shelter ; 
And whether man or beast, all move alike 
Towards their hornes, and happy they who have 
A house to screen them from the piercing cold I 
Lo ! o'er the frost a reverend form advs()gpces, 



440 JOANNA BAILLIE. 

His hair white as the snow on which he treads, 

His forehead mark'd with many a care-worn furrow. 

Whose feeble body, bending o'er a staff, 

Shows still that once it was the seat of strength. 

Though now it shakes like some old ruin'd tower. 

Clothed indeed, but not disgraced, with rags. 

He still maintains that decent dignity 

Which well becomes those who have served their country. 

With tottering steps he gains the cottage door : 

The wife within, who hears his hollow cough. 

And pattering of his stick upon the threshold, 

Sends out her little boy to see who's there. 

The child looks up to mark the stranger's face, 

And, seeing it enlighten'd with a smile. 

Holds out his tiny hand to lead him in. 

Kound from her work the mother turns her head, 

And views them, not ill-pleased. 

The stranger whines not with a piteous tale, 

But only asks a little to relieve 

A poor old soldier's wants. 

The gentle matron brings the ready chair, 

And bids him sit to rest his weary limbs, 

And warm himself before her blazing fire. 

The children, full of curiosity, 

Flock round, and with their fingers in their mouths, 

Stand staring at him ; while the stranger, pleased, 

Takes up the youngest urchin on his knee. 

Proud of its seat, it wags its little feet. 

And prates and laughs, and plays with his white locks. 

But soon a change comes o'er the soldier's face : 

His thoughtful mind is turn'd on other days. 

When his own boys were wont to play around him, 

Who now lie distant from their native land, 

In honorable but untimely graves ; 

He feels how helpless and forlorn he is. 

And big round tears course down his wither'd cheeks. 

His toilsome daily labor at an end. 

In comes the wearied master of the house. 

And marks with satisfaction his old guest 

In the chief seat, with all the children round him. 

His honest heart is fill'd with manly kindness. 

He bids him stay and share their homely meal, 

And take with them his quarters for the night. 

The aged wanderer thankfully accepts. 

And by the simple hospitable board 

Forgets the by -past hardships of the day. 

FAME. 

Oh ! ' who shall lightly say that Fame 
Is nothing but an empty name ! 
Whilst in that sound there is a charm 
The nerves to brace, the heart to warm, 
As thinking of the mighty dead. 

The young from slothful couch will start, 
And vow, with lifted hands outspread, 

Like them to act a noble part ? 



MOIR. 441 



Oh 1 who shall lightly say that Fame 
Is nothing but an empty name ! 
When, but for those our mighty dead, 

All ages past a blank would be, 
Sunk in oblivion's murky bed, 

A desert bare, a shipless sea ? 
They are the distant objects seen, — 
The lofty marks of what hath been. 

Oh ! who shall lightly say that Fame 
Is nothing but an empty name ! 
When memory of the mighty dead 

To earth-worn pilgrim's wistful eye 
The brightest rays of cheering shed. 

That point to immortality ? 



DAVID MACBETH MOIR, 1798-1851. 

To few writers of the present century has English poetry been more indebted 
than to David Macbeth Moir, not only for his own productions, but for his 
genial and discriminating criticism on the poetry of others. He was born at 
Musselburgh, about six miles southeast of Edinburgh, on the 5th of January, 
1798. From the schools of his native town he passed to the University of 
Edinburgh, where he pursued his medical studies with diligence and success. 
Having received the diploma of a surgeon, he established himself in that 
capacity in his native place, where he soon acquired an extensive practice. 

Dr. Moir was but about nineteen years of age when he committed his first 
verses to the press in the pages of Blacktvood's Magazine, under the signature 
of the Greek letter (A) ; and hence the title of " Delta" was usually given to 
him in the literary world. For more than thirty years he continued to enrich 
the pages of that Magazine with a series of poems, which would be remark- 
able were it for nothing but the profusion with which they were poured forth. 
But they possessed many and high qualities, — a great command of language 
and numbers, a delicate and graceful fancy, and a sweet, pure vein of tender- 
ness and pathos. "Delta," wrote Professor Wilson, "has produced many 
original pieces, which will possess a permanent place in the poetry of Scot- 
land. Delicacy and grace characterize his happiest compositions; some of 
them are beautiful, and others breathe the simplest and purest pathos," Nor 
less decisive is the praise of Lord Jeffrey. "I cannot," he writes to our author, 
"resist the impulse of thanking you with all my heart for the deep gratifica- 
tion you have afforded me, and the soothing, and, I hope, * bettering,' emotions 
which you have excited. I am sure that what you have written is more 
genuine pathos than any thing, almost, I have ever read in verse, and is so 
tender and true, so sweet and natural, as to make all lower recommendations 
indifferent." 

In 1831, Dr. Moir published his Outlines of the Ancient History of Medicine; 
being a View of the Progress of the Healing Art among the Egyptians, Greeks, 
Romans, and Arabians, — a work of great research and diversified erudition. 
In 1843 he published his Domestic Verses, which were received with great favor 



442 



MOIB. 



and passed through numerous editions. In 1851 he delivered a course of "Six 
Lectures at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution on the Poetical Literature 
of the Past Half-Century," which were soon after published. It would be diffi- 
cult to speak of these in terms of too high praise ; for I know not where, in so 
small a compass, may be found so much sound criticism and judicious reflec- 
tions upon the poets of Great Britain of the nineteenth century. In July, 
1851, appeared the "Lament of Selim," Delta's last contribution to Blackwood's 
Magazine. From first to last he contributed three hundred and seventy articles, 
in prose and verse, to that periodical. He died on the 6th of July, 1851, from 
an injury received by the upsetting of his carriage. His last words were a 
prayer, uttered in the most distinct and fervent manner: — "And now may the 
Lord my God not separate between my soul and my body till he has made a 
final and eternal separation between my soul and sin, for the sake of my 
Eedeemer." 

Of his character, his biographer, the poet, Thomas Aird, remarks, "Pro- 
fessional reputation is a desirable thing, and literary honor is not to be de- 
spised ; but all distinctions fade away as comparatively cheap to those who 
had the privilege of knowing Mr. Moir in the 'mild majesty of private life.* 
Constituted and composed of so many harmonious excellencies, the Christian 
gentleman, in the bosom of his beautiful family, was the consummation of 
them all." Says the beautiful tribute to his memory in Blackwood's Magazine, 
" We take farewell of the gentlest and kindest being, of the most true and 
single-hearted man, that we may ever hope to meet with in the course of this 
earthly pilgrimage." 

Dr. Moir married, in 1829, Miss Charlotte E. Bell, of Leith. They had eleven 
children, of whom eight survived the father. Three, who died before reaching 
their fifth year, — namely, Charles Bell, "William Blackwood, and David Mac- 
beth, whom he loved so dearly, and whom he lamented in strains of such 
undying pathos, — sleep side by side with their father in the quiet churchyard 
of Inveresk.i 

CAS A WAPPY> 

And hast thou sought thy heavenly home, 

Our fond, dear boy, — 
The realms where sorrow dare not come, 

Where life is joy ? 
Pure at thy death as at thy birth, 
Thy spirit caught no taint from earth, 
Even by its bliss we mete our dearth, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Despair was in our last farewell. 

As closed thine eye ; 
Tears of our anguish may not tell. 

When thou didst die : 
Words may not paint our grief for thee. 
Sighs are but buljbles on the sea 
Of our unfathom'd agony, 

Casa Wappy ! 



1 Read The Poetical WorTcs of David Macbeth' 
Moir (A), edited hy Tliomas Aird, with a Me- 
moir of the Author, 2 volumes. 



2 This was the self-conferred pet name of his 
little son David Macbeth, wlio was snatched 
away, after a very brief illness, at the age of 
four and a half. 



MOIR. 443 



Thou wert a vision of delight . 

To bless us given ; 
Beauty embodied to our sight, 

A type of heaven : 
So dear to us thou wert, thou art 
Even less thine own self than a part 
Of mine and of thy mother's heart, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Thy bright, brief day knew no decline, — 

'Twas cloudless joy ; 
Sunrise and night alone were thine. 

Beloved boy ! 
This morn beheld thee blithe and gay ; 
That found thee prostrate in decay; 
And, e'er a third shone, clay was clay, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Gem of our hearth, our household pride. 

Earth's un defiled ; 
Could love have saved, thou hadst not died, 

Our dear, sweet child ! 
Humbly we bow to Fate's decree ; 
Yet had we hoped that Time should see 
Thee mourn for us, not us for thee, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Do what I may, go where I will, 

Thou meet' St my sight; 
There dost thou glide before me still, — 

A form of light 1 
I feel thy breath upon my cheek, — 
I see thee smile, I hear thee speak, — 
Till, oh, my heart is like to break, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Methinks thou smilest before me now. 

With glance of stealth ; 
The hair thrown back from thy full brow 

In buoyant health ; 
I see thine eyes' deep violet light, 
Thy dimpled cheek carnation' d bright, 
Thy clasping arms so round and white, 
Casa Wappy ! 

The nursery shows thy pictured wall, 

Thy bat, thy bow. 
Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball ; 

But. where art thou ? 
A corner holds thine empty chair ; 
Thy playthings, idly scatter' d there, 
But speak to us of our despair, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Even to the last thy every word^ — 

To glad — to grieve — 
Was sweet, as sweetest song of bird 

On summer's eve ; 



444 MOIR. 



In outward beauty undecay'd, 
Death o'er thy spirit cast no shade, 
And like the rainbow thou didst fade, 
Casa Wappy! 

We mourn for thee, when blind blank night 

The chamber fills ; 
We pine for thee, when morn's first light 

Reddens the hills ; 
The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, 
All — to the wall-flower and wild-pea — 
Are changed : we saw the world through thee, 
Casa Wappy ! 

And though, perchance, a smile may gleam 

Of casual mirth, 
It doth not own, whate'er may seem. 

An iuAvard birth : 
We miss thy small step on the stair ; 
We miss thee at thine evening prayer ; 
All day we miss thee — everywhere — 
Casa Wappy ! 

Snows muffled earth when thou didst go, 

In life's spring-bloom, 
Down to the appointed house below, — 

The silent tomb. 
But now the green leaves of the tree. 
The cuckoo and '' the busy bee," 
Return ; but with them bring not thee, 
Casa Wappy ! 

'Tis so ; but can it be — (while flowers 

Revive again) — 
Man's doom, in death that we and ours 

For aye remain ! 
Oh, can it be, that, o'er the grave. 
The grass renew'd should yearly wave. 
Yet God forget our child to save ? — 
Casa Wappy ! 

It cannot be ; for were it so 

Thus man could die, 
Life were a mockery, — Thought were woe, — 

And Truth a lie, — 
Heaven were a coinage of the brain, — 
Religion frenzy, — Virtue vain, — 
And all our hopes to meet again, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Then be to us, O dear, lost child ! 

With beam of love, 
A star, death's uncongenial wild 

Smiling above ; 
Soon, soon thy little feet have trod 
The skyward path, the seraph's road, 
That led thee back from man to God, 
Casa Wappy ! 



Mom. 



445 



Yet 'tis sweet balm to our despair, 

Fond, fairest boy, 
That Heaven is God's, and thou art there 

With Him in joy ! 
There past are death and all its woes, 
There beauty's stream forever flows, 
And pleasure's day no sunset knows, 
Casa Wappy ! 

Farewell, then, — for a while, farewell, — 

Pride of my heart! 
It cannot be that long we dwell 

Thus torn apart : 
Time's shadows like the shuttle flee ; 
And, dark howe'er life's night may be, 
Beyond the grave I'll meet with thee, 
Casa Wappy ! ^ 



WEEP NOT FOR HER. 

A DIRGE. 

Weep not for her ! — Oh ! she was far too fair, 
Too pure, to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth ! 

The sinless glory, and the golden air 

Of Zion, seem'd to claim her from her birth : 

A spirit wander'd from its native zone, 

Which, soon discovering, took her for its own : 
Weep not for her ! 

Weep not for her ! — Her span was like the sky, 
Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright ; 

Like flowers that know not what it is to die ; 

Like long-link'd shadeless months of Polar light; 

Like music floating o'er a waveless lake. 

While Echo answers from the flowery brake: 
Weep not for her ! 

Weep not for her ! — She died in early youth, 
Ere hope had lost its rich romantic hues ; 

When human bosoms seem'd the homes of truth. 
And earth still gleam'd with beauty's radiant dews; 

Her summer-prime waned not to days that freeze ; 

Her wine of life was run not to the lees : 
Weep not for her ! 

Weep not for her ! — By fleet or slow decay. 
It never grieved her bosom's core to mark 



1 " And now for the rarest of all poetic merit, 
heart-subduing pathos. The Dornestic Verses 
themselves arc a complete Worship of Sorroto. 
The simple, sobbing, wailing pathos of Casa 
Wappy has drawn more tears of mothers than 
»ay other dirge of our day. Poem we are 



loth to call it : such things are not made by 
the brain, — they are the spilth of the human 
heart, that wonderful fountain, fed from the 
living veins of Heaven, and welling over." — 
Thomas Aird. 



38 



446 MOIR. 

The playmates of her childhood wane away, 

Her prospects wither, or her hopes grow dark ; 
Translated by her God, with spirit shriven, 
She pass'd as 'twere in smiles from earth to Heaven : 
Weep not for her ! 

Weep not for her ! — It was not hers to feel 
The miseries that corrode amassing years, 

'Gainst dreams of baffled bliss the heart to steel, 
To wander sad down Age's vale of tears ; 

As whirl the wither'd leaves from Friendship's tree, 

And on earth's wintry Avorld alone to be : 
Weep not for her ! 

Weep not for her ! — She is an angel now. 
And treads the sapphire floors of Paradise ; 

All darkness wiped from her refulgent brow, 
Sin, sorrow, suffering, banish'd from her eyes ; 

Victorious over death, to her appear 

The vista'd joys of Heaven's eternal year : 
Weep not for her ! 

Weep not for her ! — Her memory is the shrine 
Of pleasant thoughts, soft as the scent of flowers ; 

Calm as on windless eve the sun's decline ; 
Sweet as the song of birds among the bowers; 

Rich as a rainbow with its hues of light ; 

Pure as the moonshine of an autumn night : 
Weep not for her ! 

Weep not for her ! — There is no cause for woe ; 

But rather nerve the spirit, that it walk 
Unshrinking o'er the thorny paths below. 

And from earth's low defilements keep thee back : 
So, when a few fleet severing years have flown. 
She'll meet thee at heaven's gate, — and lead thee on I 
Weep not for her ! 

SPRING HYMN. 

How pleasant is the opening year! 

The clouds of Winter melt away; 
The flowers in beauty reappear; 

The songster carols from the spray ; 
Lengthens the more refulgent day ; 

And bluer glows the arching sky ; 
All things around us seem to say, 

" Christian ! direct thy thoughts on high " 

In darkness, through the dreary length 

Of Winter slept both bud and bloom ; 
But Nature now puts forth her strength, 

And starts renew' d, as from the tomb; 
Behold an emblem of thy doom, 

O man ! — a star hath shone to save, — 
And morning yet shall re-illume 

The midnight darkness of the grave! 



MOIR. 447 

Yet ponder well, how then shall break 

The dawn of second life on thee, — 
Shalt thou to hope, — to bliss awake ? 

Or vainly strive God's wrath to flee ? 
Then shall pass forth the dread decree, 

That makes or weal or woe thine own : 
Up, and to work ! Eternity 

Must reap the harvest Time hath sown. 

The following extracts from his Sketches of Poetical Literature of the Past 
Ealf -Century will give some idea of Dr. Moir as a tasteful and judicious 
critic : — 

HEBREW POETRY. 

The most sublime poetry, by far, to which the world has ever 
listened, is that of the Hebrew. It is immeasurably beyond all 
Greek and all Koman inspiration ; and yet its sole theme is the 
Great Jehovah, and the ways and wonders of His creation. All 
is simply grand, nakedly sublime ; and man before his Maker, 
even in the act of adoration, is there made to put his lips in the 
dust. So have done the great bards of succeeding times : Milton, 
and Young, and Thomson, and Cowper, and Pollok. In approach- 
ing the shrine, they take off the sandals from their feet, well 
knowing that the spot whereon they stand is holy ground. But 
all not being great, alas ! all do not so behave ; and hence, in 
common hands, sacred poetry has become, not without reason, a 
subject of doubt and discussion ; for in them error has dared to 
counsel infallibility, ignorance to fathom omniscience, and narrow- 
minded prejudice to circumscribe the bounds of mercy, — the 
human irreverently to approach the Divine, and " fools to rush 
in where angels fear to tread." 

THE FINEST POETRY— WHAT. 

The finest poetry is that (whatever critical coteries may assert 
to the contrary, and it is exactly the same with painting and 
sculpture) which is most patent to the general understanding, 
and hence to the approval or disapproval of the common sense 
of mankind. AVe have only to try the productions of Shakspeare, 
of Milton, of Dryden, of Pope, of Gray and Collins, of Scott, 
Burns, Campbell, and Byron, indeed, of any truly great writer 
whatever in any language, by this standard, to be convinced that 
such must be the case. Verse that will not stand being read 
aloud before a jury of comrdon-sense men is — and you may rely 
upon the test — wanting in some great essential quality.^ It is 
here that the bulk of the poetry of Shelley — and not of him 



1 Undoubtedly a most true criterion : how then would some of the poetry of Wordsworth 
or of Tennyson stand this test? 



448 MOORE. 

only, but of most of those who have succeeded him in his track 
as poets — is, when weighed in the balance, found wanting. And 
why? Because these writers have left the highways of truth 
and nature, and, seeking the by-lanes, have there, mistaking the 
uncommon for the valuable, bowed down to the idols of affecta- 
tion and false taste. 

MYSTICAL POETBY. 

Mysticism in law is quibbling ; mysticism in religion is the jug- 
glery of priestcraft; mysticism in medicine is quackery, — and 
these often serve their crooked purposes well. But mysticism in 
poetry can have no attainable triumph. The sole purpose of 
poetry is to delight and instruct, and no one can be either pleased 
or profited by what is unintelligible. It would be as just to call 
stones and mortar, slates and timber, a mansion, or to call colors 
and canvas a picture, as to call mystical effervescences poetry. 
Poems are poetical materials artistically elaborated ; and if so, 
the productions of this school, from Emerson to Browning, cannot 
be allowed to rank higher than rhapsodical effusions. It is ne- 
cessary for a poet to think, to feel, and to fancy ; but it is also 
necessary for him to assimilate and combine, — processes which 
the pupils of this transcendental academy seem indeed to wisK 
understood either that they totally overlook, or affect to under- 
value as worthless. Besults, products, conclusions, — not ratioci- 
nations, — are expected from the poet. " His heart leaps up when 
he beholds a rainbow in the sky ;" but the laws of refraction pro- 
ducing this emotion he leaves to be dealt with as a fit subject for 
science. It is the province of the poet to describe the western 
sunset sky " dying like a dolphin" in its changeful hues, not the 
optical why and wherefore of twilight. In short, his business is 
with enunciations, not with syllogisms. The poet springs to con- 
clusions not by the logic of science, but by intuition ; and who- 
soever, as a poet, acts either the chemist, the naturalist, or the 
metaphysician, mistakes the object of his specific mission. Phi- 
losophy and poetry may, in most things, not be incompatible, 
but they are essentially distinct. Metaphysical analyses cannot 
be accepted as substitutes either for apostrophes to the beautiful, 
or for utterances of passion. I hold them to be as different from 
these as principles are from products, or as causes from effects. 



THOMAS 310 ORE, 1779-1852. 

Thomas Moore, the son of a respectable tradesman of Dublin, was born in 
that city on the 28th of May, 1779. After the usual preparatory course of study, 
he entered Trinity College, in his native city, where he graduated in November, 



MOORE. 449 

1799. He then went to England, and became a student in the Middle Temple; 
but, though ultimately called to the bar, he gave his time chiefly to literary 
pursuits. In 1800 he published his translation of the Odes of Anaa-con, which 
were received with great favor, and elicited from the Hon. Henry Erskine the 
following complimentary imjiromptu: — 

" Ah ! mourn not for Aiiacrcon dead — 
Ah ! weep not for Anacreon tied — 
The lyre still breathes he touch'd before, 
JFor we have one Anacreon Moore." 

Soon after this he published his miscellaneous poems, under the title of The 
Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little, — a volv;me which was censured, and 
censured severely, for its licentiousness, and of which the author, many years 
afterwards, was heartily ashamed. . In 1806 he visited our country, and published, 
shortly after his return to England, his remarks on American society and man- 
ners, in a volume entitled Epistles, Odes, and other Poems, which was reviewed ^ 
with great and deserved severity in the Edinburgh- Review, by Mr. Jeff"rey.2 

In 1812 appeared his celebrated Intercepted Letters, or The Txoo-Penny Post- 
Bag, hy Thomas Brown the Younger. This was followed by the Fudge Family in 
Paris, and Fables for the Holy AUiayice, — all satires upon the passing topics of 
the day, but — though evincing great wit, and a rich, playful fancy, and for 
the time extremely popular — all destined to pass away and be soon forgotten. 
Not so his Irish Songs and Melodies,^ and his Hebrew Melodies: these display a 
depth of fervor, a richness of fancy, and a touching pathos, united to exquisite 
beauty and polish of versification, that will cause them to be read and admired 
as long as the English language endures. 

In 1817 appeared his most elaborate poem, Lalla Mookh, an Oriental romance, 
— the accuracy of which, as regards topographical, antiquarian, and character- 
istic details, has been vouched for by numerous competent authorities, and 
which unites the purest and softest tenderness with the loftiest dignity, while 
its poetry is brilliant and gorgeous, — rich to excess with imagery and ornament, 
and oppressive from its very sweetness and splendor. The genius of the poet 
moves with grace and freedom under his load of Eastern magnificence, and the 
reader is fascinated by his prolific fancy and the scenes of loveliness and 
splendor which are depicted with such vividness and truth. In 1823 appeared 
The Loves of the Angels, which contains many passages of great beauty, but, as 
a whole, is inferior to his former productions. The poem is founded on "the 
Eastern story of the angels Harut and Marut, and the Eabbinical fictions of 
the lives of Uzziel and Shamchazai," with which Moore shadowed out "the 
fall of the soul from its original purity, — the loss of light and happiness which 
it suSers in the pursuit of this world's perishable pleasures, — and the punish- 



1 " The author may boast, if the boast can 
please him, of being the most licentious of 
modern versifiers, and the most poetical of 
those who, in our times, have devoted their 



2 A duel between himself and Jeffrey was 
the consequence ; but it resulted in the com- 
batants becoming excellent friends. Byron, 
his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 



talents to the propagation of immorality. We I ridicules the meeting with no little wit. 
regard this book, indeed, as a public nuisance, 3 " His Irish Melodies formed, as they are 
and would willingly trample it down by one [ likely to continue, the principal ground of his 
short movement of contempt and indignation, popularity as a man and as a poet. He ap- 
htid we not reason to apprehend that it was plied himself to the work that in Ireland con- 
abetted by patrons who are entitled to a more secrates him with the fame of a patriot, and 
respectful remonstrance, and by admirers who which in English letters will give him an 
ni.ay require a more extended exposition of abiding name as a bard." — London Atfienseum. 
their dangers." — Edinburgh Review, viii. 456. i 

38* 



460 



MOORE. 



ments, both from conscience and Divine justice, with which impurity, pride, 
and presumptuous inquiry into the awful secrets of heaven are sure to be 
visited." 

In 1825 was published his Life of Sheridan, which, "with some omissions and 
perhaps a few mistakes, some little faults of style, and some precipitate 'opi- 
nions, we do not hesitate to characterize as the best historical notice yet published 
of the events of our own times. Without pretending to give — what this gene- 
ration can scarcely yet need — a particular or connected detail of the transactions 
to which it refers, it exhibits the clearest and most intelligent account of all 
the great questions which were agitated during that momentous period, — the 
best estimate of the great events by which it was distinguished, — and not only 
the ablest exposition of the causes which led to them, and the principles they 
served either to establish or expose, but the most truly impartial, temperate, 
and dispassionate view of the merits of the individuals concerned in them, — 
the actual value of their services and amount of their ofFendings, with the : 
excuses which the times or circumstances should suggest for them, — that we : 
ever recollect to have met with in the diflQcult and dangerous department of i 
contemporary history." ^ 

In 1830 appeared his Life of Byron, in two volumes, by which, it has been 
well said, "neither the reputation of the author was advanced, nor the character : 
of Lord Byron vindicated." In addition to these works, he is the author of I 
Corruption and Intolerance, a Poem; The Skeptic, a Philosophical Satire; Rhymes 
on the Poad; The Epicur-ean, a Tale; and The Life of Captain Pock. He has | 
also written a number of miscellaneous pieces, both in prose and verse, which 
have been inserted in various periodical journals, and a large number of beau-, 
tiful songs, which have become permanently popular. 

No English poet of the present century has displayed a greater command of H 
rich language and luxurious imagery than Thomas Moore; but, with the ex- 
ception of his Sacred Melodies and a portion of Lalla Pookh, we shall find little | 
elevated moral feeling, and but fev/ wise and manly reflections. It has beeil 
well said that he has "worked little in the durable and permanent materials of ■ 
poetry, but has spent his prime in enriching the stately structvire with exquisite 
ornaments, foliage, flowers, and gems. He has preferred the myrtle to the olive| 
or the oak. His longer poems want human interest. Tenderness and pathos 
he undoubtedly possesses; but they are fleeting and evanescent, — not embodied 
in his verse in any tale of melancholy grandeur, or strain of affecting morality 
or sentiment." His "most finished performances are to be found in Lalla Pookh; 
some portions of the Fire Worshippers have scarcely been surpassed; and the 
character of Mokanna, in the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, is a "sublime con- 
ception sublimely executed." 

The last three years of Moore's life had been along disease, not attended 
with either bodily or mental suffering, but from a gradual softening of the 
brain and a reduction of the mind to a state of childishness. He died ai 
Sloperton Cottage, near Devizes (Wiltshire), on the 26th of February, 1852.2 

The happiest and truest characterization of Moore's genius that we have evei 



1 Edinburgh Review, xiv. 2. 

2 In 1841 Moore brought out an edition of 
his entire poetical works, in ten volumes. Of 
this tlie Literary Gazette says, "From among 
the earlier productions the most prurient have 



been expunged ; and upon others the authoi 
has laid the hand of excision and improve 
ment." After his death, his friend Lord .Tohi 
Russell published his Memoirs, Journal, am 
Correspmidence, in eight volumes. 



MOORE. 



451 



seen comes from himself, as in the following lines from Lalla Rookh, so exqui- 
sitely descriptive of his own power. • 

310 ORE'S GENIUS SELF-PAINTED. 

For mine is the lay that lightly floats, 
And mine are murmuring, dying notes, 
That fall as soft as snow on the sea, 
And melt in the heart as instantly. 

And mine is the gentle song that bears 

From soul to soul the wishes of love, 
As a bird that wafts through genial airs 

The cinnamon-seed from grove to grove. 

'Tis I that mingle in one sweet measure 
The past, the present, and future of pleasure, 
When Memory links the tone that is gone 

With the blissful tone that's still in the ear; 
And Hope from a heavenly note flies on 

To a note more heavenly still that is near. 



PARADISE AND THE PERI. 

One morn a Peri at the gate 
Of Eden stood disconsolate: 
And as she listen'd to the Springs 

Of Life within, like music flowing. 
And caught the light upon her wings 

Through the half-open'd portal glowing. 
She wept to think her recreant race 
Should e'er have lost that glorious place! 

"How happy," exclaim'd this child of air, 
"Are the holy spirits who wander there. 

Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall: 
Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea. 
And the stars themselves have flowers for me, 

One blossom of Heaven outblooms them alll 

"Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, 
With its plane-tree isle reflected clear, ^ 

And sweetly the founts of that valley fall; 
Though bright are the waters of Sing-su-hay, 
And the goklen floods that thitherward stray,^ 
Yet — oh ! 'tis only the blest can say 

How the waters of Heaven outshine them all ! 

"Go wing thy flight from star to star, 
From world to luminous world, as far 



' " Numerous smaU islands emerge from the 
Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char-Che- 
naur, from the plane-trees upon it." — Forster. 

* " The Altan Kol, or Golden River of Thibet. 



which runs into the Lakes of Sing-su-hay, has 
abundance of gold in its sands, which employs 
the inhabitants all summer in gathering it." — 
Description of Thibet, in Pinkerton. 



452 



MOORE. 



As the universe spreads its flaming wall ; 
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, 
And multiply each through endless years, 

One minute of Heaven is worth them all 1" 



But naught can charm the luckless Peri ; 
Her soul is sad — her wings are weary — 
Joyless she sees the sun look down 
On- that great temple, once his own,^ 
Whose lonely columns stand sublime, 

Flinging their shadows from on high, 
Like dials, which the wizard. Time, 

Had raised to count his ages by ! 

Yet haply there may lie conceal'd 
Beneath those Chambers of the Sun, 

Some amulet of gems anneal'd 

In upper fires, some tabret seal'd 
With the great name of Solomon, 
Which, spell'd by her illumined eyes, 

May teach her where, beneath the moon, 

In earth or ocean lies the boon. 

The charm that can restore so soon 
An erring spirit to the skies ! 

Cheer'd by this liope she bends her thither ;— 

Still laughs the radiant eye of Heaven, 

Nor have the golden bowers of even 
In the rich west begun to wither ; — 
Wlien, o'er the vale of Balbec, winging 

Slowly, she sees a child at play. 
Among the rosy wild-flowers singing, 

As rosy and as wild as they ; 
Chasing, with eager hands and eyes, 
The beautiful blue damsel-flies,^ 
That flutter'd round the jasmine stems, 
Like winged flowers or flying gems ; — 
'And, near the boy, who, tired with play, 
Now nestling 'mid the roses lay. 
She saw a wearied man dismount 

From his hot steed, and on the brink 
Of a small imaret's^ rustic fount 

Impatient fling him down to drink. 
Then swift his haggard brow he turn'd 

To the fair child, who fearless sat. 
Though never yet hath day beam burn'd 

Upon a brow more fierce than that, — 
Sullenly fierce,— a mixture dire. 
Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and -fire ! 
In Avhich the Peri's eye could read 
Dark tales of many a ruthless deed : 



1 The Temple of the Sun at Balbec. 

2 "You behold there a considerable number 
of a remarkable species of beautiful insects, 
the elegance of whose appearance and their 



attire procured for them the name of Dam- 
sels."— Sonnini. 

3 A place where lodging and food are fur- 
nished gratis to pilgrims for three days. 



MOORE. 



453 



The ruin'd maid — the shrine profaned — 
Oaths broken — and the threshold stain' d— 
With blood of guests — there written, all, 
Black as the damning drops that fall 
From the denouncing angel's pen, 
Ere mercy weeps them out again ! 

Yet tranquil now that man of crime 
(As if the balmy evening time 
Soften' d his spirit) look'd and lay, 
Watching the rosy infant's play : — 
Though still, whene'er his eye by chance 
Fell on the boy's, its lurid glance 

Met that unclouded, joyous gaze. 
As torches, that have burnt all night 
Through some impure and godless rite, 

Encounter morning's glorious rays. 

But hark ! the vesper-call to prayer, 

As slow the orb of daylight sets, 
Is rising sweetly on the air, 

From Syria's thousand minarets V- 
The boy has started from the bed 
Of flowers, where he had laid his head, 
And down upon the fragrant sod 

Kneels with his forehead to the south, 
Lisping the eternal name of God 

From purity's own cherub mouth, 
And looking, while his hands and eyes 
Are lifted to the glowing skies. 
Like a stray babe of Paradise, 
Just lighted on that flowery plain. 
And seeking for its home again ! 
Oh, 'twas a sight— that Heaven— that child— 
A scene Avhich might have Avell beguiled 
E'en haughty Eblis of a sigh 
For glories lost and peace gone by 1 

And how felt he, the wretched man, 

Eeclining there — while memory ran 

O'er many a year of guilt and strife. 

Flew o'er the' dark flood of his life, 

Nor found one sunny resting-place, 

Nor brought him back one branch of grace ! 

" There ivas a time," he said, in mild 

Heart-humbled tones, " thou blessed child ! 

When young, and haply pure as thou, 

I look'd and pray'd like thee — but now" — 



1 " Such Turks as at the common hour of 
prayer are on the road, or so emploj'ed as not 
to find convenience to attend the mosques, are 
Btlll obliged to execute that duty; nor are 
they ever known to fail, whatever business 
they are then about, but pray immediately 
•when the hour alarms them, whatever they 
are about, in that very place they chance to 
stand on; insomuch that when a jannissary, 
whom you have to guard you up and down the 
city, hears the notice which is given him from 



the steeples, he vnW turn about, stand still, 
and beckon with his hand, to tell his charge 
he must have patience for awhile; when, 
taking out his handkerchief, he spreads it on 
the ground, sits cross-legged thereupon, and 
says his pravers, though in the open market, 
which having ended, he leaps briskly up, 
salutes the person whom he undertook to con- 
vey, and renews his journey with the mild ex- 
pression of Ghdl gohnnumghell ; or, Come, dear, 
follow me."— Aaron Hill's Travels. 



454 MOORE. 



He hung his head — each nobler aim 

And hope and feeling, which had slept 
From boyhood's hour, that instant came 

Fresh o'er him, and he Avej)t — he wept ! 

Blest tears of soul-felt penitence ! 

In whose benign redeeming flow ■ 

Is felt the first, the only sense a 

Of guiltless joy that guilt can know. 1 

".There's a drop," said the Peri, "that down from the moon 

Falls through the withering airs of June 

Upon Egypt's land,^ of so healing a power, 

So balmy a virtue, that e'en in the hour 

That drop descends, contagion dies. 

And health reanimates earth and skies ! — 

Oh, is it not thus, thou man of sin. 

The precious tears of repentance fall ? 
Though foul thy fiery plagues within. 

One heavenly drop hath disj)errd them all !" 

And now — behold him kneeling there 
By the child's side in humble prayer, 
While the same sunbeams shine upon 
The guilty and the guiltless one. 
And hymns of joy proclaim through heaven 
The triumph of a soul forgiven. 

'Twas when the golden orb had set. 

While on their knees they linger'd yet, 

There fell a light more lovely far 

Than ever came from sun or star, 

Upon the tear, that, warm and meek, 

Dew'd that repentant sinner's cheek : 

To mortal eye this light might seem , 

A northern flash, or meteor beam — 

But well the enraptur'd Peri knew 

'Twas a bright smile the Angel threw 

From heaven's gate, to hail that tear 

Her harbinger of glory near ! 

" Joy, joy forever ! my task is done — 
The gates are pass'd, and heaven is won !" 



IS IT NOT SWEET TO THINK, HEREAFTER. J 

Is it not sweet to think, hereafter, " 

When the spirit leaves this sphere. 
Love, with deathless wing, shall waft her 

To those she long hath mourn 'd for here ? 

Hearts, from which 'twas death to sever, 

Eyes, this world can ne'er restore, 
There, as warm, as bright as ever, 

Shall meet us and be lost no more. 



1 The Nucta, or Miraculons.Drop, which falls I and is supposed to have the effect of stopping 
in Egypt precisely on St. John's day, in June, | the plague. 



MOORE. 



465 



Oh ! if no other hoon were given, 

To keep our hearts from wrong and stain, 

Who woidd not try to win a Heaven 
Where all we love shall live again ? 



'TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUiUjVEB. 



'Tis the last rose of summer, 

Left blooming alone ; 
All her lovely companions 

Are faded and gone ; 
No flower of her kindred, 

No rose-bud is nigh, 
To reflect back her blushes. 

Or give sigh for sigh ! 

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one ! 

To pine on the stem ; 
Since the lovely are sleeping. 

Go, sleep thou with them. 



Thus kindly I scatter 
Thy leaves o'er the bed. 

Where thy mates of the garden 
Lie scentless and dead. 

So soon may I follow, 

When friendships decay. 
And from Love's shining circle 

The gems drop aAvay ! 
When true hearts lie wither'd, 

And fond ones are flown. 
Oh ! who would inhabit 

This bleak world alone ? 



I SAW THY FORM. 

I saw thy form in youthful prime, 
Nor thought that pale decay 

Would steal before the steps of Time, 
And waste its bloom away, Mary ! 

Yet still thy features wore that light 
. Which fleets not with the breath ; 

And life ne'er look'd more truly bright 
Than in thy smile of death, Mary ! 

As streams that run o'er golden mines, 

Yet humbly, calmly glide. 
Nor seem to know the wealth that shines 

Within their gentle tide, Mary ! 
So, vail'd beneath the simplest guise. 

Thy radiant genius shone, 
And that, which charm'd all other eyeg, 

Seem'd worthless in thy own, Mary ! 

If souls could always dwell above, 

Thou ne'er hadst left that sphere; 
Or, could we keep the souls we love. 

We ne'er had lost thee here, Mary ! 
Though many a gifted mind we meet, 

Though fairest forms we see. 
To live with them is far less sweet 

Than to remember thee, Mary.l 



THOSE EVENING BELLS. 

Those evening bells ! those evening bells ! 
How many a tale their music tells. 
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time 
When last I heard their soothing chime ! 



456 MOORE. 

Those joyous hours are past away ! 
And many a heart, that then was gay, 
Within the tomb now darkly dwells, 
And hears no more those evening bells ! 

And so 'twill be when I am gone ; 
That tuneful peal will still ring on, 
While other bards shall walk these dells, 
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells ! 

C03IE, YE DISCONSOLATE. 

Come, ye disconsolate, where'er you languish, 
Come, at the shrine of God fervently kneel ; 

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish, 
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal. 

Joy of the desolate. Light of the straying. 

Hope, when all others die, fadeless and pure. 
Here speaks the Comforter, in God's name saying, — - 

" Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure." 

Go, ask the infidel, what boon he brings us, 
What charm for aching hearts he can reveal. 

Sweet as that heavenly promise Hope sings us, — 
" Earth has no sorrow that God cannot heal." 

TEE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS. 

Oft in the stilly night, 

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me, 
Fond Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me ; 
The smiles, the tears 
Of boyhood's years, 
The words of love then spoken ; 
The eyes that shone, 
Now dimm'd and gone, 
The cheerful hearts now broken ! 
Thus, in the stilly night, 
• Ere Slumbei*'s chain has bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 

When I remember all 

The friends, so link'd together, 
I've seen around me fall, 

Like leaves in wintry weather ; 
I feel like one 
Who treads alone 
Some banquet-hall deserted, 
Whose lights are fled, 
Whose garlands dead. 
And all but him departed ! 
Thus, in the stilly night. 

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 



MOORE. 457 



LIKE MORNING, WHEN HER EARL Y BREEZE. 

Like morning, when her early breeze 
. Breaks up the surface of the seas, 
That in their furrows, dark with night, 
Her hand may sow the seeds of light, — 

Thy Grace can send its breathings o'er 
The spirit, dark and lost before. 
And, freshening all its depths, prepare 
For Truth divine to enter there ! 

Till David touch'd his sacred lyre, 
In silence lay the unbreathing wire ; 
But when he swept its chords along. 
Even angels stoop' d to hear that song. 

So sleeps the soul, till Thou, O Lord, 
Shalt deign to touch its lifeless chord ; 
Till, waked by Thee, its breath shall rise 
In music, worthy of the skies ! 

THE BIRD LET LOOSE. 

The bird, let loose in eastern skies,^ 

When hastening fondly home. 
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies 

Where idle warblers roam. 
But high she shoots through air and light. 

Above all low delay. 
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, 

Nor shadow dims her way. 

So grant me, God, from every care 

And stain of passion free. 
Aloft, through Virtue's purer air. 

To hold my course to thee ! 
No sin to cloud, — no lure to stay 
, My soul, as home she springs ; 

Thy Sunshine on her joyful way, 

Thy Freedom in her wings ! 

THIS WORLD IS ALL A FLEETING SHOW. 

This world is all a fleeting show. 

For man's illusion given ; 
The smiles of Joy, the tears of Woe, 
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow, — 

There's nothing true but Heaven ! 

And false the light on Glory's plume, 

As fading hues of even ; 
And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom 
Are blossoms gather'd for the tomb, — 
_ There's nothing bright but Heaven ! 

1 The carrier-pigeon, it is well known, flies I every obstacle between her and the place to 
at an elevated pitch, in order to surmount | which she is destined. 

39 



458 



ROBERTSON. 



Poor wanderers of a stormy day, 

From wave to wave we're driven ; 
And Fancy's flasli, and Keason's ray, 
Serve but to light tlie troubled way, — 

There's nothing calm but Heaven I * 

THOU ART, GOD! 

Thou art, O God, the life and light 
Of all this wondrous world we see ; 

Its glow by day, its smile by night, 
Are but reflections caught from Thee. 

Where'er we turn, Thy glories shine, 

And all things fair and bright are Thine ! 

When Day, with farewell beam, delays 
Among the opening clouds of Even, 

And we can almast think we gaze 

Through golden vistas into heaven, — ■ 

Those hues, that make the sun's decline 

So soft, so radiant, Lord, are Thine ! 

When Night, with wings of starry gloom, 
O'ershadows all the earth and skies. 

Like some dark, beauteous bird, Avhose plume 
Is sparkling with unnumber'd eyes, — 

That sacred gloom, those fires divine, 

So grand, so countless. Lord, are Thine ! 

When youthful Spring around us breathes, 
Thy spirit warms her fragrant sigh ; 

And every flower the Summer wreathes 
Is born beneath that kindling eye. 

Where'er we turn. Thy glories shine. 

And all things fair and bright are Thine ! 



FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, 1816-1853. 

Few clergymen who have died so young have left so deep an impress upon 
the public mind and exerted so wide an influence as Rev. Frederick W. Eobert- 
son. He was born in London, February 3, 1816. His father was a captain of 
the Eoyal Artillery, and the son devoted two years to the study of the military 
profession;^ but his views then changed, and he entered Oxford, where he 
graduated in 1840. He was then ordained, and in 1842 settled in Cheltenham 
as a curate, where he continued four years. After this he travelled on the con- i 



1 " But he was destined to a sterner warfare ; 
and never did any man enter the Church of 
Enghind with a profoundor conviction that he 
had a Captain to serve and a hfe-long battle to 
fight. And his whole course was a struggle. 
Truth to him was dearer than party, dea)-er 
than friends, dearer than life itself. Never did 



any one detest more heartily all shams, and • 
subterfuges, and conventionalisms; never did 
clergyman, while reverencing above all other 
the Church in which he was minister, possess 
less of a sectarian spirit."— John Dennis, in 
Fortnightly Bevieiv, January 1, 1866. 



ROBERTSON. 



459 



tinent for his health; returned the next year to England; was appointed to the 
incumbency of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, August, 1847, where he continued his 
faithful labors till his death, June 15, 1853, in his thirty-eighth year. Such 
are the brief outlines of the life of a man of whom the Christian World says, 
*' A more thoughtful, suggestive, and beautiful preacher never entered a pulpit; 
a simpler and braver man never lived ; a truer Christian never adorned any 
religious community." 

Robertson was one who thought for himself. When he entered Oxford, the 
Tractarian party, under the lead of Newman and Pusey, was rising rapidly into 
notice. He was pressed to join the movement; he examined its principles 
carefully, saw whither it would tend, recoiled from it, and took his stand on 
the opposite side. If he came under the influence of any one, it was that of 
the great and good Dr. Arnold; and he went forth from the University into the 
world resolved to do, in the name of Christ, all the good he could, by preaching 
the gospel, as the great Preacher preached it, to the poor, and by elevating and 
improving the masses. At Cheltenham he drew to hear him, on the first day 
of the week, crowds whom he had encouraged and helped on the other six 
days. But it was at the wider field of Brighton that he labored most and accom- 
plished most. Into that wonderful ministry of six years an amount of work 
was crowded which could have been done only by a man who felt that life 
would be short, and that it might be useful and sublime. His heart had often 
yearned for the poor, to do them good if possible, to raise them from their low 
and sad condition, and to pour into their too weary lot the gentle and warm 
charities of Christian hearts and hands. But some men, then called good, 
trembled at the thought of elevating the working classes, and rather looked 
round for power to keep them down. It was his habit to review all national 
events, and to seek to pour light upon all great public questions in his preach- 
ing, as well as by other means that offered themselves. He preached to his 
own age, but always uttered truths and principles which lay at the deep hearts 
of all ages. As he said himself, ''the great depths of humanity remain the 
Bame from age to age." He neither pandered to the flippant folly of the upper 
classes, nor played with the foibles of his humble brethren ; and the great work 
he had before him at Brighton he performed with a zeal and fidelity which 
will ever cause him to be regarded as one of the noblest chamioions for the 
truth.' 



THINGS WORSE THAN WAR.'^ 

Carnage is terrible. The conversion of producers into de- 
stroyers is a calamity. Death and insults to woman worse than 
death — and human features obliterated beneath the hoof of the 
war-horse — and reeking hospitals, and ruined commerce, and vio- 
lated homes, and broken hearts, — they are all awful. But there 
is something worse than death. Cowardice is worse. And the 
decay of enthusiasm and manliness is Avorse. And it is worse 



1 Read a good article on Robertson in the 
Christian World, transferred to Every Satur- 
day, No. 1 ; also, an article in The Nation, De- 
cember 14, 1865; also, his Sermons, in four 
volumes, and Life and Letters, edited by Staf- 
ford A. Brooke, two volumes, all republished 



by Ticknor <£ Fields, Boston. Also, an article 
in the Fortnightly Review, January 1,1866. 

2 What could he more applicable to our own 
nation's history from 1861 to 1865 than these 
noble views ? 



460 ROBERTSON. 

than death, ay, worse than a hundred thousand deaths, when a 
people has gravitated down into the creed that the " wealth of 
nations" consists, not in generous hearts — " Fire in each breast, 
and freedom on each brow" — in national virtues, and primitive 
simplicity, and heroic endurance, and preference of duty to life, 
— not in MEN, but in silk and cotton, and something that they 
call * capital.' Peace is blessed. Peace, arising out of charity. 
But peace, springing out of the calculations of selfishness, is not 
blessed. If the price to be paid for peace is this, that wealth 
accumulate and men decay, better far that every street in every 
town of our once noble country should run blood ! 

Through the physical horrors of warfare, there may be dis- 
cerned a redeeming nobleness. For in truth, when war is not 
prolonged, the kindling of all the higher passions prevents the 
access of the baser ones. A nation split and severed by mean re- 
ligious and political dissensions suddenly feels its unity, and men's 
hearts beat together, at the mere possibility of invasion. And 
even woman, as the author of the History of the Peninsular War 
has well remarked, sufferer as she is by war, yet gains, — in the 
more chivalrous respect paid to her, in the elevation of the feel- 
ings excited towards her, in the attitude of protection assumed by 
men, and in the high calls to duty which arouse her from the 
frivolousness and feebleness into which her existence is apt to 
sink. 

WORK OUR DUTY. 

Christian brethren, this world is not yours ; J:hank God it is 
not. It is dropping away from you like worn-out autumn leaves ; 
but beneath it, hidden in it, there is another world lying as the 
flower lies in the bud. That is your world, which must burst 
forth at last into eternal luxuriance. All. you stand on, see, and 
love, is but the husk of something better. Things are passing ; 
our friends are dropping off from us ; strength is giving way ; 
our relish for earth is going ; and the world no longer wears to 
our hearts the radiance that once it wore. We have the same 
sky above us, and the same scenes around us ; but the freshness 
that our hearts extracted from every thing in boyhood, and the 
glory that seemed to rest once on earth and life, has faded away 
forever. Sad and gloomy truths to the man who is going down 
to the grave with his work undone. Not sad to the Christian ; 
but rousing, exciting, invigorating. If it be the eleventh hour, 
we have no time for folding of the hands ; we will work the 
faster. Through the changefulness of life ; through the solemn 
tolling of the bell of Time, which tells us that another, and 
another, and another, are gone before us ; through the noiseless 
rush of a world which is going down with gigantic footsteps into 
nothingness ; let not the Christian slack his hand from work ; for 



ROBERTSON. 461 

he that doeth the will of God may defy hell itself to quench his 
immortality. 

KINDLINESS. 

Opportunities of doing good do not come back. We are here, 
brethren, for a most definite and intelligible purpose, — to educate 
our own hearts by deeds of love, and to be the instruments of 
blessing to our brother men. There are two ways in which this 
is to be done, — by guarding them from danger, and by soothing 
them in their rough path by kindly sympathies, — the two things 
which the apostles were asked to do for Christ. And it is an 
encouraging thought that he who cannot do the one has at least 
the other in his power. If he cannot protect, he can sympathize. 
Let the weakest, let the humblest in this congregation remember 
that in his daily course he can, if he will, shed around him almost 
a heaven. Kindly words, sympathizing attentions, watchfulness 
against wounding men's sensitiveness, — these cost very little ; but 
they are priceless in their value. Are they not, brethren, almost 
the staple of our daily happiness? From hour to hour, from 
moment to moment, we are supported, blest, by small kindnesses. 
And then, consider ; here is a section of life one-third, one-half, 
it may be three-fourths, gone by, and the- question before us is, 
how much has been done in that way ? Who has charged him- 
self with the guardianship of his brother's safety? Who has 
laid on himself as a sacred duty to sit beside his brother suffer- 
ing ? Oh, my brethren, it is the omission of these things which 
is irreparable ; irreparable, when you look to the purest enjoy- 
ment which might have been your own ; irreparable, when you 
consider the compunction which belongs to deeds of love not 
done ; irreparable, when you look to this groaning world, and 
feel that its agony of bloody sweat has been distilling all night, 
and you were dreaming away in luxury ! Shame, shame upon 
our selfishness ! There is an infinite voice in the sin and suffer- 
ings of earth's millions, which makes every idle moment, every 
moment, that is, which is not relaxation, guilt; and seems to cry 
out, If you will not bestir yourself for love's sake now, it will 
soon be too late. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 

It is in vain to rail at works of fiction with indiscriminate cen- 
sure. Read they will be, and read they must be ; and if we are 
asked the reason why works of fiction are matters of importance, 
the best reply which has been suggested is, that they enlarge the 
heart, enabling us to sympathize with the hearts of a larger circle 
of the human race than that into which our own experience 
admits us. You are all familiar with the works of Dickens. 
The effect of that man's writings upon English feelings and Eng- 

39* 



462 ROBERTSON. 

lish sympathies is quite incalculable. The peculiar feature of 
his works is, that their scenes are always placed in the ordinary 
walks of life. It is the character of all fiction now. The Cla- 
rissas and Grandisons of past ages have disappeared, and the life 
exhibited to us now is that of the lower classes of society. Men 
who by reading the works of Cooper had learned to feel that 
there was a real human life in the heart of the red Indian of the 
prairie, and who, by reading the works of Scott, learned that 
beneath the helmets and mail of iron which rust in our armories, 
human passions and affections once beat warm, were insensibly 
taught by the works of Dickens to feel that in this country, close 
to their own homes, there was a truth of human life, the existence 
of which they had not suspected. We all remember the immense 
sensation those works made at first. If you asked the lady who 
was getting out of her coroneted carriage at the bookseller's shop 
what it was she wanted, you were told she had come to inquire if 
the new number of Dickens's last work were out yet. If you 
saw a soldier on the turnpike road with his knapsack on his back, 
reading as he went, and stepped up behind him and looked over 
his shoulder, hoping, perhaps, to see that it was a tract, you saw 
it was the same everlasting Dickens. From the throne to the 
cottage this was true. What was the result of this? Imper- 
ceptibly, one which all the pulpits of the country would have 
been glad to combine in producing. The hearts of the rich and 
poor were felt to throb together. Men came to find that the 
rustic altar binds together two human hearts of man and woman 
with exactly the same feelings and anxieties and loves, as the 
marriage performed in the drawing-room, which unites peers and 
peeresses. They discovered that when death enters into the poor 
man's hovel, it is just as much a rending asunder of soul and 
body as if a spirit had been breathed away beneath a coverlet of 
silk. They came to find, too, that the lower classes have not a 
monopoly of all the simplicities of life, nor the upper classes the 
monopoly of all its absurd pride. People who lived in the 
highest ranks of life were startled to find that their own foolish 
jealousies had their exact repetition in the life which was going 
on beneath them. The ridiculous scorn with which the ancient 
family looks down upon the newly ennobled, and the newly 
ennobled looks down on the newly rich, has its exact counterpart 
in the sovereign contempt with which the small shopkeeper in his 
shop six feet square, looks down on the poor apple-woman who 
has dared to bring her barrow too near the sacred neighborhood 
of his aristocratic board. This Avas the achievement of these 
works of fiction. It w^as a lesson to us all, of humbleness, and 
sympathy, and mutual toleration; one step towards expanded 
love. 



AMELIA OPIE. 463 



AMELIA OPIE, 1771-1853. 

Mrs. Amelia Opie was a daughter of Dr. Alderson, an eminent physician of 
Norwich, and was born in that city in 1771. At a very early period of her life 
she evinced talents of a superior order, composing, while still a child, poems, 
descriptive pieces, and novels, though, with the exception of some poetical 
pieces in the Monthly Magazine, none of them were published before her mar- 
riage, which took place in May, 1798, with Mr. John Opie, th« celebrated 
painter. One of her first publications, The Father and Daughter,^ a tale, ap- 
peared in 1801, which at once drew upon her the public attention. This was 
succeeded, in 1802, by an Flegy to the Memori/ of the late Duke of Bedford, and a 
volume of other poems; and in 1804 she gave to the world her tale of Adeline 
Mowhry, or the 'Mother and Daughter. This was followed by Simple Tales, in 
four volumes; Dangers of Coquetry ; and the Warrior's Return, and other Poems. 
In 1807 she lost her husband, and wrote, soon after, that beautiful piece entitled 
The Lament. 

Mrs. Opie's subsequent publications are — a novel, entitled Temper, or Domestic 
Scenes; Tales of Real Life ; Valentine Eve ; Netv Fables, in four volumes; and 
The Black Mans Lament, in praise of the abolition of slavery, which appeared 
in 1826. But that which has made her name most known is her Illustrations of 
Lying in all its Branches. It exj)oses to view much of the hypocrisy and heart- 
lessness of what is called the "fashionable world," and of the various tricks 
and deceptions resorted to by men of business to " succeed," as they call it, in 
making money; and, by numerous interesting and illustrative stories, she sets 
forth in their true light the various lies of " Flattery," of " Fear," of " Con- 
venience," of " Interest," of " Benevolence," &c. It is a book which every one, 
but especially the young, might read with much profit. A short time before 
the publication of this work, Mrs. Opie joined the "Society of Friends," and 
60on retired from general society, of which, for a quarter of a century, she had 
been a cheerful and attractive votary. She died on the 2d of December, 1853. 
Of her character, one who knew her remarks, " She was true in heart and true 
in life; generous, confiding, and faithful. Her cheerful heart shone through 
her bright face, and brought comfort and pleasure into every house she entered; 
and her deep reverence for all lofty and sacred things was as remarkable as 
the cheerfulness itself. We shall ever regard her life as one of the healthiest 
and happiest we have known. "^ 

Mrs. Opie's poetry exhibits pure taste and great depth of feeling, — such as 
are shown in the following song, which Lord Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Revicio, 
pronounced " one of the finest in the language." 

FORGET 3IE NOT. 

Go, youth beloved, in distant glades 
^ New friends, new hopes, new joys to find ! 

Yet sometimes deign, midst fairer maids, 
To think on her thou leav'st behind. 



1 "An appalling piece of domestic tragedy, and perhaps the most deeply affecting of her 
writings." — Edinburgh Eniew, li. 540. 
* Gentleman's Magazine, January, 1854. 



464 AMELIA OPIE. 

Thy love, thy fate, dear youth, to share, 

Must never be my happy lot ; 
But thou may'st grant this humble prayer, 

Forget me not ! forget me not ! 

Yet, should the thought of my distress 

Too painful to thy feelings be, 
Heed not the wish I now expre.'^s, 

Nor ever deign to think on me ; 
But, oh, if grief thy steps attend, 

If want, if sickness be thy lot. 
And thou require a soothing friend, 

Forget me not ! forget me not ! 

H YMxY. 

There's not a leaf within the bower ; 

There's not a bird upon the tree ; 
Tliere's not a dew-drop on the flower, 

But bears the impress. Lord, of Thee. 

Thy hand the varied leaf design'd, 

And gave the bird its thrilling tone : 
Thy power the dew-drop's tints combined, 

Till like a diamond's blaze they shone. 

Yes : dew-drops, leaves, and birds, and all. 
The smallest, like the greatest things, — 

The sea's vast space, the earth's Avide ball, — 
Alike proclaim Thee King of kings. 

But man alone to bounteous Heaven 

Thanksgiving's conscious strains can raise ; 

To favor' cl man alone 'tis given 
To join the angelic choir in praise. 

LIES FALSELY CALLED LIES OF BENEVOLENCE. 

These are lies which are occasioned by a selfish dread of losing 
favor and provoking displeasure by speaking the truth, rather 
than by real benevolence. Persons, calling themselves benevo- 
lent, withhold disagreeable truths and utter agreeable falsehoods 
from a wish to give pleasure or to avoid giving pain. If you say 
that you are looking ill, they tell you that you are looking well. 
If you express a fear that you are growing corpulent, they say 
you are only just as fat as you ought to be. If you are hoarse in 
singing, and painfully conscious of it, they declare that they did 
not perceive it. And this, not from the desire of flattering yon, 
or from the malignant one of wishing to render you ridiculous, 
by imposing on your credulity, but from the desire of making 
you pleased with yourself. In short, they lay it down as a rule 
that you must never scruple to sacrifice the truth when the alter- 
native is giving the slightest pain or mortification to any one. 

I shall leave my readers to decide whether the lies of fear or 



AMELIA OPIE. 405 

of benevolence preponderate in the following trifling but cliarac- 
teri.stic anecdote : — 



A TALE OF rOTTED SPRATS. 

]\Iost mistresses of families have a family receipt-book, and are 
apt to believe that no receipts are so good as their own. 

With one of these notable ladies a young housekeeper went to 
pass a few days, both at her town and country house. The hostess 
was skilled not only in culinary lore, but in economy ; and 'svas 
in the habit of setting on her table, even when not alone, what- 
ever her taste or carefulness had led her to pot, pickle, or pre- 
serve for occasional use. 

Before a meagre family dinner was quite over, a dish of potted 
BPRATS was set before the lady of the house, who, expatiating on 
their excellence, derived from a family receipt of a century old, 
pressed her still unsatisfied guest to partake of them. 

The dish was as good as much salt and little spice could make 
it ; but it had one peculiarity : it had a strong flavor of garlic, 
and to garlic the poor guest had a great dislike. 

But she was a timid woman ; and good breeding and what she 
called benevolence, said, " Persevere and swallow," though her 
palate said No. " Is it not excellent?" said the hostess. "Very," 
faltered out the half-suflbcated guest ; and this was lie the first. 
" Did you ever eat any thing like it before ?" " Never," replied 
the other, more firmly ; for then she knew that she spoke the 
truth, and longing to add, " and I hope I shall never eat any 
thing like it again." " I wall give you the receij^t," said the 
lady, kindly ; " it will be of use to you as a young housekeeper ; 
for it is economical as well as good, and serves to make out when 
we have a scrap-dinner. My servants often dine on it." " I won- 
der you can get any servants to live with you," thought the guest; 
" but I dare say you do not get any one to stay long !" " You do 
not, hoAvever, eat as if you liked it." " Oh, yes, indeed, I do, very 
much" (lie the second), she replied ; " but you forget I have 
already eaten a good dinner r (lie the third. Alas ! what had 
benevolence, so called, to answer for on this occasion !) 

"Well, I am delighted to find that you like my sprats," said 
the flattered hostess, while the cloth was removing: adding, 
"John! do not let those sprats be eaten in the kitchen!" — an 
order which the guest heard with indescribable alarm. 

The next day they were to set off for the country-house, or cot- 
tage. When they were seated in the carriage a large box was 
put in, and the guest fancied she smelt garlic; but, 

"Where ignorance is bliss, 
'Tis folly to be wise." 



466 AMELIA OPIE. 

She therefore asked no questions, hut tried to enjoy the present 
regardless of the future. At a certain distance they stopped to 
bait the horses. There the guest expected that they should get 
out and take some refreshment; but her economical companion, 
with a shrewd wink of the eye, observed, " I always sit in the 
carriage on these occasions. If one gets out, the people at the 
inn expect one to order a luncheon. I therefore take mine with 
me." So saying, John was summoned to drag the carriage out 
of sight of the inn windows. He then unpacked the box, took 
out of it knives and forks, plates, &c., and also ajar, which, im- 
pregnating the air with its effluvia, even before it was opened, 
disclosed to the alarmed guest that its contents were the dreaded 
sprats ! 

"Alas!" thought she, "Pandora's box was nothing to this! for 
in that, Hope remained behind ; but at the bottom of this is De- 
spair !" In vain did the unhappy lady declare (lie the fourth) 
that "she had no appetite, and (lie the fifth) that she never ate 
in a morning." Her hostess would take no denial. However, 
she contrived to get a piece of sprat down, enveloped in bread ; 
and the rest she threw out of the window when her companion 
was looking another way, — who, however, on turning round, ex- 
claimed, " So you have soon despatched the first ! let me give you 
another ; do not refuse because you think they are nearly finished; 
I assure you there are several left, and (delightful information !) 
we shall have a fresh supply to-morrow !" However, this time 
she was allowed to know when she had eaten enough ; and the 
travellers proceeded to their journey's end. 

This day the sprats did not appear to dinner ; but, there being 
only a few left, they were reserved for supper ! — a meal of which, 
this evening, on account of indisposition, the hostess did not par- 
take, and was therefore at liberty to attend entirely to the wants 
of her guest, who would fain have declined eating also, but it was 
impossible; she had just declared that she was quite well, and 
had often owned that she enjoyed a piece of supper after an early 
dinner. There was therefore no retreat from the maze in which 
her insincerity had involved her, — and eat she must ; but, when 
she again smelt on her plate the nauseous composition, wdiich, 
being near the bottom of the pot, w^as more disagreeable than 
ever, human patience and human infirmity could bear no more: 
the scarcely-tasted jnorsel fell from her lips, and she rushed pre- 
cipitately into the open air, almost disposed to execrate, in her 
heart, potted sprats, the good breeding of her officious hostess, 
and even benevolence itself. 

Some may observe, on reading this story, " What a foolish crea- 
ture the guest must have been ! and how improbable it is that any | 
one should scruple to say, ' The dish is disagreeable ;' and ' I hate 



TALFOURD. 467 

garlic !' " But it is my conviction that the gnest, on this occasion, 
was only a slightly-exaggerated specimen of the usual conduct of 
those who have been taught to conduct themselves wholly by the 
artificial rules of civilized society, of which, generally speaking, 
falsehood is the basis. 

Benevolence is certainly one of the first of virtues ; and its re- 
sult is an amiable aversion to wound the feelings of others, even 
in trifles ; therefore benevolence and politeness may be considered 
as the same thing ; but Worldly Politeness is only a copij of 
benevolence. Benevolence is gold : this politeness, a paper cur- 
rency, contrived as its substitute; as society, being aware that 
benevolence is as rare as it is precious, and that few are able to 
distinguish in any thing the false from the true, resolved, in lieu 
of benevolence, to receive Worldly Politeness, with all her 
train of deceitful welcomes, heartless regrets, false approbations, 
and treacherous smiles, — those alluring seemings, which shine 
around her brow, and enable her to pass for Benevolence herself. 

But how must the religious and the moral dislike the one, 
though they venerate the other! The kindness of the worldly 
polite only lives its little hour in one's presence; but that of the 
benevolent retains its life and sweetness in one's absence. The 
worldly polite will often make the objects of their greatest flat- 
teries and attentions when present, the butt of their ridicule as 
soon as they see them no more ; while the benevolent hold the 
characters and qualities of their associates in a sort of holy keejnng 
at all times, and are as indulgent to the absent as they ^yQiQ^tten-^ 
tive to the jyreserit. The kindness of the worldly polite is the gay 
and pleasing flower worn in the bosom as the ornament of a few 
hours, then suffered to fade and thrown by when it is wanted no 
longer ; but that of the really benevolent is like the fresh-spring- 
ing evergreen, that blooms on through all times and all seasons, 
unfading in beauty and undiminished in sweetness. 



THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, 1795-185^, 

Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd was the son of a brewer in Eeading, who mar- 
ried the daughter of Mr. Thomas Noon, a *' dissenting" clergyman : hence the 
name of our author, who was born January 26, 1795. He studied law, and was 
called to the bar in 1821. In 1833 he was made sergeant-at-law; and in 1849 a 
seat on the bench rewarded his talents and his toils. But his love for literature 
was as early and as ardent as his love for his profession. In 1815 he published 
a paper, entitled An Estimate of the Poetry of the Age, in which he claims for 
Wordsworth the honor of being one of the first of modern jDoets. In succeed- 



468 TALFOURD. 

ing years he became a contributor to the Retros2Kctive Bevieio, the Edinburgh 
Review, the London Magazine, and the New Monthly Magazine, and wrote the 
History of Greek Literature, in the Encyclopcedia Metropolitana. In 1835 ap- 
peared his tragedy of Ion, his highest literary effort, after the manner of the 
Greek drama, and founded uj^on the old Grecian notion of destiny. This was 
followed by three other tragedies, The Atheiiian Captive, Glencoe, and The Cas- 
tilian; and in 1851 he published Vacation Hamblen, comprising the recollection 
of three continental tours. But the work for which Mr. Talfourd will probably 
be best loved, if not most known, is his edition of The Works of Charles Lamb, 
loith a Memoir, in four volumes, interspersed throughout with the most genial 
and appreciative criticisms, and with interesting and valuable information 
upon the authors and events of the time. 

Mr. Talfourd died of apoplexy, at Stafford, on the 13th of March, 1854, while 
delivering his charge to the grand jury. He was speaking of the increase of 
crime, of the neglect of the rich, the ignorance of the poor, of the want of a 
closer knowledge and more vital sympathy between class and class, and of the 
thousand social evils Avhich arise from that, unhappy and unnatural estrange- 
ment of human interests, — when his face flushed, and he bent forward on his 
desk. A moment more, and the bystanders saw him swerve, as if he were 
already senseless. He was dying calmly. In a few seconds he was gone; and 
all that was mortal of the poet, the scholar, and the jurist, was carried into the 
judges' chamber, and there laid down in breathless awe. 

BUT ONE HOMER. 

The hypothesis to which the antagonists of Homer's personality- 
must resort implies something far more wonderful than the theory 
whicl#they impugn. They profess to cherish the deepest vene- 
ration for the genius displayed in the poems. They agree also 
in the antiquity usually assigned to them ; and they make this 
genius and this antiquity the arguments to prove that one man 
could not have composed them. They suppose, then, that in a 
barbarous age, instead of one being marvellously gifted, there 
were many ; a mighty race of bards, such as the world has never ! 
since seen, — a number of miracles instead of one. All experience ' 
is against this opinion. In various periods of the world great 
men have arisen, under very different circumstances, to astonish 
and delight it; but that the intuitive powder should be so strangely 
diffused, at any one period, among a great number who should] 
leave no successors behind them, is unworthy of credit. Andj 
w^e are requested to believe this to have occurred in an age' 
which those who maintain the theory regard as unfavorable to; 
the poetic art ! The common theory, independent of other proofs,! 
is 2^r mid facie the most probable. Since the early existence of ' 
the works cannot be doubted, it is easier to believe in one than 
in twenty Homers. 



TALFOURD. 469 



VARIETIES OF CHARACTER IN THE ILIAD. 

Nothing is more surprising in human works than the immense 
number and variety of the characters which are brought together 
in the Iliad, without any one clashing with another, or bearing 
too near a resemblance. Achilles, Ulysses, Nestor, Ajax, Hector, 
and Diomed, live and move before us. They all talk, as well as 
act, in character. Of those which have the most similarity, 
scarcely a speech or an action could be transferred from one 
to another without taking something from its force, grace, and 
dramatic propriety. There are nice shades of distinction, and 
those philosophically accounted for, even in the valor of the 
chieftains ; a quality which would commonly seem to admit of 
few, and those very broad, diversities. The variety of wounds 
described by Homer is not greater, and not so extraordinary, as 
the modes by which each warrior manifests the kind of prowess 
in which he excels in the midst of the combat. The character 
of Diomed, in particular, is admirably drawn : fiery, ingenuous, 
choleric, and yet yielding the most ready and graceful submission 
to those whom he regards as competent to check or direct him. 
Hector is the most amiable and virtuous of all the heroes, and is 
rendered yet more interesting by his premature death. There is 
great life and spirit in the delineation of Achilles, though his 
quarrel with the Greeks, and revenge on the body of Hector, are 
inconsistent with true greatness. He is a simple warrior, open- 
hearted, sincere, and detesting every mean and low vice, but 
little softened by touches of gentleness and pity. His unhappy 
Trojan foe is as superior to him in accomplishment and grace as 
he is in moral worth. There are passages in the Iliad of great 
pathos, as well as of quiet beauty. The account of the impression 
made by Helen on the counsellors of Priam, and of the afiec- 
tionate address of the venerable monarch, in which he tries to 
soothe her, is no less exquisite in its kind than the most vivid 
picture of a battle, in which heroes and gods are the combatants. 
The melancholy journey of Priam to the tent of Achilles is 
admirably conceived and touchingly described ; and the whole 
scene in the Grecian camp forms an excellent dramatic picture. 
There is nothing in the poem more pathetic than the lamentation 
of Helen over the body of Hector, in which she declares, that 
while others have reviled her as the author of their calamities, 
he had never given her one unkind word or upbraiding look. 
It gives a finishing touch to the almost perfect character of the 
unfortunate hero, and leaves on our minds the kindliest impression 
respecting him. 

40 



470 TALFOURD. 



THE EFFECT OF CHRISTIANITY ON POETRY. 

The Christian religion was the great cause of the revolution 
of poetry. It banished the illusions of mythology from the world. 
For a time, it even caused the mighty fictions of Homer and his 
countrymen to be deprived of that poetical admiration to which 
they are entitled. It fixed men's hopes and affections on things 
unseen. It gave distant glimpses of an eternal world, instead 
of the sensible images with which the regions beyond the grave 
had been fantastically adorned, and restored the feeling of One 
great pervading Cause, which had so long been divided amidst 
a multitude of material deities. Hence the mingling of the 
classical with the contemplative class of poetry, which has ever 
since been blended with the greatest works of imagination. The 
poets of our own country, and especially Shakspeare and Milton, , 
have thus eminently succeeded. And they have not merely given i 
us, in some passages, clear and distinct images of graceful and I 
elegant forms, and in others referred us to the elements, and to > 
the vast and undefined in nature and in eternity, but they have ■ 
frequently, by one effort of the imagination, united both the • 
sources of the grand and delightful. AVhile they have pictured I 
forth distinctly sublime and beautiful forms, they have made 
those forms the representatives of whole classes ; they have in- ■ 
volved the universal in the individual. They have described to \ 
us, with a Grecian precision, the glorious objects of creation, and 1 
yet have made these objects the mere foreground of a far-reaching • 
perspective. The most noble and deep feelings, and sentiments, 
and thoughts, are, in their works, expressed and embodied in the :| 
fairest of earthly shapes. Every feature has an expression which li 
no coloring of this wnjrld could supply. Creation is covered with 
an imaginative lustre, a dream-like radiance emanating from the I 
soul. And yet nothing of distinctiveness is lost to the objects ! 
which w^e see through this pure and softening medium. 



SYMPATHY. 

We keep too much aloof from those beneath us : hence their 
somewhat natural prejudices are left unmitigated, and we become 
objects only of their suspicion and dislike. Even towards our 
domestic servants we are apt to think our whole duty fulfilled 
when the contract between us is performed, — when we have paid 
them their wages, and especially if, further, we have curbed our 
temper and used no violent expressions tow^ards them, but ever 
treated them with the civility consistent with our habits and 
feelings. How painful is the thought that there are men and 
women growing up around us, ministering to our comforts and 



WILSON. 



An 



necessities, continually inmates of our dwellings, with whose 
afiections and nature we are as much unacquainted as if they 
were inhabitants of some other sphere ! This reserve, peculiar 
to the English character, greatly tends to prevent that recipro- 
cation of kind w^ords, gracious admonitions, friendly inquiries, 
and gentle affections, which, more than any book education, 
culture the heart, while they refine and elevate the character of 
those to whom they are addressed. If I were to be asked. What 
is the great want of English society to mingle class with class ? 
I should reply in one word, — sympathy !^ 



JOHN WILSON, 1788-185^. 

John Wilson, the distinguished Professor of Moral Philosophy in the JJu' ■ 
versity of Edinburgh, was born in the year 1788, in the town of Paisley. He 
was the son of an opulent manufacturer of Paisley, and received his element- 
ary education at Glasgow University, whence, in due time, he was transferred 
to Magdalene College, Oxford. Here his poetical genius was developed, and 
he carried off the Newdigate prize from a vast number of competitors for the 
best English poem of fifty lines. To fine genius and great powers of literary 
acquisition he added a remarkable taste for gymnastic exercises and athletic 
sports. After being four years at Oxford, he purchased a small but beautiful 
estate, named Elleray, on the banks of Lake Windermere, where he went to 
reside. *' He mai-ried, built a house and a yacht, enjoyed himself among the 
magnificent scenery of the lakes, wrote poetry, and cultivated the society of 
Wordsworth." At this period he published the first of his beautiful poems, 
The Isle of Palms, a volume that placed him at once by the side of some of our 
most elegant modern poets. Subsequently he became a member of the Scottish 
bar, and in a few years received the appointment to that chair which he so 
long filled with honor. His permanent reputation will rest upon his prose 
writings. His contributions to Blackwood's Magazine raised the whole tone and 
character of magazine literature, — for in this he poured forth the riches of his 
fancy, learning, and taste. The various essays on Spenser and Homer, the 
Essay on Burns, and those inimitably witty and brilliant conversations, known 
as Nodes Amhrosian<z? afford perhaps the finest specimens of Wilson's prose. 
The most valuable of these contributions have been published in three volumes, 
under the title of The Recreations of Christoph&r North. His poetical works 



1 " In these days the rich do not look enough 
to the poor. We have great exertions for public 
charities, indeed, but there is a separation in 
England between the rich and poor, and to me 
it is a strong indication of decline." — General 
Sir Charles Napier. 

^ A very complete and beautiful edition of 
this work has been edited, " with Memoirs and 
Kotes, by R. Shelton Mackenzie, D.C.L.," in 



five volumes, with portraits and fac-similes. 
New York: W. J. Widdleton. These papers 
were so called {Nodes Ambrosianse) because 
thej' were supposed to be written by a brother- 
hood of young scholars and wits, who assem- 
bled at a quiet inn in Edinburgh, kept by one 
Mr. Ambrose. Professor Wilson wrote most of 
the numbers ; but Wm. Maginn, J. G. Lockhart, 
and James Hogg wrote a few each. 



472 WILSON. 

have been collected in two volumes, consisting of The Isle of Palnis, The City 
of the Plague, and several smaller pieces.* 

The fault of some of his prose writings consists in his extreme opinions, which 
are often carried to a point that makes them ridiculous, and therefore harmless: 
and at times one is doubtful whether he is speaking his real opinions or writing 
a mere caricature. For instance, in his paper entitled An Hour's Talk about 
Poetry, in his extravagant panegyric upon the English female poets, he thus 
breaks forth : — " The truth is too glaring to be denied, that all male rational 
creatures are in the long run vile, corrupt, and polluted ; but all women are 
pure as dewdrops or moonbeams, and know not the meaning of evil." Exag- 
geration so absurd, whether he means it for truth or ridicule, equally fails of 
its object, — if it have an object. 

Of his poetry Jeffrey says, that "with a most touching and tranquillizing 
sweetness there is a certain monotony and languor which, to those who read 
poetry for amusement merely, will be apt to appear like dulness, and must be 
felt as a defect by all who have been used to the variety, rapidity, and energy 
of the popular poetry of the day." As a prose writer his great strength lies in 
his power of pathetic description ; and here he has hardly been surpassed.^ A3 
a delineator of Scottish pastoral life, his Lights and Shadows, his Trials of Mar- 
garet Lindsay, and his Foresters seem destined to remain unapproached in their 
peculiar excellencies, and have as fair a chance of becoming immortal as any 
writings of a similar character in the English language.^ 

The physical frame of Professor Wilson was remarkable for its perfeetness. 
In stature about six feet two inches, with an erect port, and stately tread, with 
a broad and brawny chest, with a high, broad, and round brow, with a brilliant eye, 
and with a nose, chin, and mouth expressing by turns determination, feeling, 
humor, and rage, he seemed to combine all those qualities which go to consti- 
tute the perfect man. But all these could not save him from the " last enemy." 
lie died on the 3d of April, 1854. 

THE HEADSTONE. 

The coffin was let down to the bottom of the grave, the planks 
were removed from the heaped-up brink, the first rattling clods 
had struck their knell, the quick shovelling was over, and the 
long, broad, skilfully-cut pieces of turf were aptly joined together, 
and trimly laid by the beating spade, so that the newest mound 
in the churchyard was scarcely distinguishable from those that 



1 "The grand characteristics of the poetry I Amhros^e's, he is the most gifted and extraor- 
of Wilson are delicacy of sentiment and ethe- dinary being that ever wielded a pen." Read 



real elegance of description. He refines and 
elevates whatever he touches; and if in his 
hands common things lose their vul,<.ar attri- 
butes, they are exchanged by him ft r some- 
thing better. There is a wild harmony and 
an untamed splendor in his delineation of the 
aspects of nature ; and among its beauties he 
riots and revels, always preferring the soft to 
the sullen, the gentle to the rugged." — Mom. 

2 " Far above all his contemporaries, and 
indeed above writers of the same class in any 
age, he soars as a rhapsodist. As Christopher 
North, by the loch, or on the moors, or at 



an article in the Quarterly, April, 18G3. 

3 •' To Professor Wilson we owe the intro- 
duction into our literature of a style of criti- 
cism at once more philosophical and more ge- 
nial, — of a criticism which combines analytical 
subtlety and precision with amazing powers 
of imaginative illustration, and which renders 
his essays on Homer, on the Greek Anthology, 
on Spenser, on Milton, on Wordsworth, on 
Scott, on Burns, on Moore"s Byron, and on the 
English Satirists— all written in the same 
catholic spirit — among th-e finest things in our 
language."— MoiR. 



WILSON. 473 

were grown over by the undisturbed grass and daisies of a luxu- 
riant spring. The burial was soon over; and the party, with 
one consenting motion, having uncovered their heads in decent 
reverence of the place and occasion, were beginning to separate 
and about to leave the churchyard. 

Here, some acquaintances from distant parts of the parish, who 
had not had opportunity of addressing each other in the house 
that had belonged to the deceased, nor in the course of the few 
hundred yards that the little procession had to move over from 
his bed to his grave, were shaking hands quietly but cheerfully, 
and inquiring after the Avelfare of each other's families. There, 
a small knot of neighbors were speaking, without exaggeration, 
of the respectable character which the deceased had borne, and 
mentioning to one another little incidents of his life, some of them 
so remote as to be known only to tlie gray-headed persons of the 
group ; while a few yards farther removed from the spot were 
standing together parties who discussed ordinary concerns, alto- 
gether unconnected with the funeral, such as the state of the 
markets, the promise of the season, or change of tenants; but 
still with a sobriety of manner and voice that was insensibly pro- 
duced by the influence of the simple ceremony now closed, by 
the quiet graves around, and the shadow of the spire and gray 
walls of the house of God. 

Two men yet stood together at the head of the grave, with 
countenances of sincere but unimpassioned grief They were 
brothers, the only sons of him who had been buried. And there 
was something in their situation that naturally kept the eyes of 
many directed upon them for a long time, and more intently than 
would have been the case had there been nothing more observable 
about them than the common symptoms of a common sorrow. 
But these two brothers, who were now standing at the head of 
their father's grave, had for some years been totally estranged 
from each other; and the only words that had passed between 
them, during all that time, had been uttered within a few 
days past, during the necessary preparations for the old man's 
funeral. 

No deep and deadly quarrel was between these brothers, and 
neither of them could distinctly tell the cause of this unnatural 
estrangement. Perhaps dim jealousies of their father's favor; 
selfish thoughts that will sometimes force themselves into poor 
men's hearts respecting temporal expectations ; unaccommodating 
manners on both sides; taunting words that mean little when 
uttered, bat which rankle and fester in remembrance; imagined 
opposition of interests that, duly considered, would have been 
found one and the same, — these and many other causes, slight 
when single, but strong when rising up together in one baneful 
band, had gradually but fatally infected their hearts, till at last 

40* 



474 WILSON. 

they who in youth had been seldom separate and truly attached, 
now met at market, and, miserable to say, at church, with dark 
and averted faces, like different clansmen during a feud. 

Surely, if any thing could have softened their hearts towards 
each other, it must have been to stand silently, side by side, while 
the earth, stones, and clods were falling down upon their father's 
coffin. And doubtless their hearts were so softened. But pride, 
though it cannot prevent the holy affections of nature from being 
felt, may prevent them from being shown ; and these two brothers 
stood there together, determined not to let each other know the 
mutual tenderness that, in spite of them, was gushing up in their 
hearts, and teaching them the unconfessed folly and wickedness 
of their causeless quarrel. 

A head-stone had been prepared, and a person came forward 
to plant it. The elder brother directed him how to place it, — a 
plain stone, with a sand-glass, skull, and cross-bones, chiselled not 
rudely, and a few words inscribed. The younger brother regarded 
the operation with a troubled eye, and said, loudly enough to be 
heard by several of the bystanders, "William, this was not kind 
in you ; you should have told me of this. I loved my father as 
well as you could love him. You were the elder and, it may be, 
the favorite son ; but I had a right in nature to have joined you 
in ordering this head-stone, had I not?" 

During these words the stone was sinking into the earth, and 
many persons who were on their way from the grave returned. 
For a while the elder brother said nothing, for he had a con- 
sciousness in his heart that he ought to have consulted his father's 
son in designing this last becoming mark of affection and respect 
to his memory : so the stone was planted in silence, and now 
stood erect, decently and simply, among the other unostentatious 
memorials of the humble dead. 

The inscription merely gave the name and age of the deceased, 
and told that the stone had been erected "by his affectionate 
sons." The sight of these words seemed to soften the displeasure 
of the angry man, and he said, somewhat more mildly, " Yes, we 
were his affectionate sons ; and, since my name is on the stone, 
I am satisfied, brother. We have not drawn together kindly of 
late years, and perhaps never may ; but I acknowledge and re- 
spect your worth ; and here, before our own friends and before 
the friends of our father, with my foot above his head, I express 
my willingness to be on other and better terms with you ; and if 
we canuot command love in our hearts, let us at least, brother, 
bar out all unkindness," 

. The minister who had attended the funeral, and had something 
intrusted to him to say publicly before he left the churchyard, 
now came forward, and asked the elder brother why he spake not 
regarding this matter. He saw that there was something of a 



WILSON. 475 

cold and sullen pride rising up in his heart ; for not easily may 
any man hope to dismiss from the chamber of his heart even the 
vilest guest, if once cherished there. With a solemn and almost 
severe air, he looked upon the relenting man, and then, changing 
his countenance into serenity, said, gently ,- 

• "Behold, how good a thing it is. 

And how becoming well, 
Together such as brethren are 
In unity to dwell !'' 

The time, the place, and this beautiful expression of a natural 
sentiment, quite overcame a heart in which many kind, if not 
warm, affections dwelt ; and the man thus appealed to bowed 
down his head and wept. " Give me your hand, brother ;" and 
it was given, while a murmur of satisfaction arose from all pre- 
sent, and all hearts felt kindlier and more humanely towards 
each other. 

As the brothers stood fervently, but composedly, grasping each 
other's hand, in the little hollow that lay between the grave of 
their mother, long since dead, and of their father, whose shroud 
w^as haply not yet still from the fall of dust to dust, the minister 
stood beside them with a pleasant countenance, and said, " I must 
fulfil the promise I made to your father on his death-bed. \ must 
read to you a few words which his hand wrote at an hour when 
his tongue denied its office. I must not say that you did your 
duty to your old father ; for did he not often beseech you, apart 
from one another, to be reconciled, for your own sakes as Chris- 
tians, for his sake, and for the sake of the mother who bare you, 
and, Stephen, who died that you might be born? When the 
palsy struck him for the last time, you w^ere both absent ; nor 
was it your fault that you were not beside the old man when 
he died. 

" As long as sense continued with him here, did he think of 
you two, and of you two alone. Tears were in his eyes ; I saw 
them there, and on his cheek, too, when no breath came from his 
lips. But of this no more. He died with this paper in his hand ; 
and he made me know that I was to read it to you over his grave. 
I now obey him. * My sons, if you will let my bones lie quiet in 
the grave, near the dust of your mother, depart not from my 
burial till, in the name of God and Christ, you promise to love 
one another as you used to do. Dear boys, receive my blessing.' " 

Some turned their heads away to hide the tears that needed 
not to be hidden ; and, when the brothers had released each other 
from a long and sobbing embrace, many went up to them, and, 
in a single word or two, expressed their joy at this perfect recon- 
cilement. The brothers themselves walked away from the church- 



476 WILSON. 

yard, arm in arm, with the minister to the manse. On the fol-, 
lowing Sabbath they were seen sitting with their families in the 
same pew ; and it was observed that they read together off the 
same Bible when the minister gave out the text, and that they 
sang together, taking hold of the same psalm-book. The same 
psalm was sung (given out at their own request) of which one 
verse had been repeated at their father's grave ; a larger sum 
than usual was on that Sabbath found in the plate for the poor, 
for Love and Charity are sisters. And ever after, both during 
the peace and the troubles of this life, the hearts of the brothers 
were as one, and in nothing were they divided. 



A MORNING PICTURE. 

She hath risen up from her morning prayer, 
And chain'd the waves of her golden hair, 
Hath kiss'd her sleeping sister's cheek, 
And breathed the blessing she might not speak, 
Lest the whisper should break the dream that smiled 
Round the snoAv-white brow of the sinless child. 
Her radiant lamb and her purpling dove 
Have ta'en their food from the hand they love ; 
The low deep coo and the plaintive bleat 
In the morning calm, how clear and sweet! 
Ere the sun has warm'd the dawning hours, 
She hath water'd the glow of her garden flowers, 
And welcomed the hum of the earliest bee 
In the moist bloom working drowsily ; 
Then up the flow of the rocky rill 
She trips away to the pastoral hill ; 
And, as she lifts her glistening eyes, 
In the joy of her heart, to the dewy skies, 
She feels that her sainted parents bless 
The life of their orj)han shepherdess. 

Lays from Fairy -Land. 



THE CHILDREN'S DANCE. 

How calm and beautiful the frosty night 

Has stolen unnoticed like the hush of sleep 
O'er Grassmere vale ! Beneath the mellowing light 

How sinks in softness every rugged steep ! 
Through many a vale how rang each snow-roof'd cot. 

This livelong day with rapture blithe and wild ! 
All thoughts but of the lingering eve forgot, 

Both by grave parent and light-hearted child. 



1 In none of his multifarious writings is the 
peculiar genius of Wilson more exquisitely 
developed thaitin his Lays from Fairy-Land. 
Over these he has poured out the whole ex- 



uberant riches of his fancy; and he leads us 
through labyrinths of dazzling beauty, where 
all is innocent, calm, and pure, — 

" Like a cloudless eve in a sinless world." 
Monu 



WILSON. All 

All day the earthen floors have felt their feet 

Twmkling quick measures to the liquid sound 
Of their own small-piped voices shrilly sweet, — 

As hand in hand they wheel 'd their giddy round. 

Ne'er fairy revels on the greensward mound, 
To dreaming bard a lovelier show display'd : — 

Titania's self did ne'er with lighter bound 
Dance o'er the diamonds of the dewy glade, 
Than danced, at peep of morn, mine own dear mountain maid. 
Oft in her own small mirror had the gleam, 

The soften'd gleam of her rich golden hair, 
That o'er her white neck floated in a stream. 

Kindled to smiles that infant's visage fair, 

Half conscious she that beauty glisten'd there ! 
Oft had she glanced her restless eyes aside 

On silken sash so bright and debonnair. 
Then to her mother flown with leaf-like glide, 
Who kiss'd her cherub-head with tears of silent pride. 



MEDITATIONS ON SPRING. 

The great sun. 
Scattering the clouds with a resistless smile, 
Came forth to do thee homage ; a sweet hymn 
Was by the low winds chanted in the sky ; 
And when thy feet descended on the earth. 
Scarce could they move amid the clustering flowers, 
By Nature strewn o'er valley, hill, and field. 
To hail her bless'd deliverer ! — Ye fair trees. 
How are ye changed, and changing while I gaze ! 
It seems as if some gleam of verdant light 
Fell on you from a rainbow ; but it lives 
Amid your tendrils, bright'ning every hour 
Into a deeper radiance. Ye sweet birds, 
Were you asleep through all the wintry hours, 
Beneath the waters, or in mossy caves ? — 
Yet are ye not, 

Sporting in tree and air, more beautiful 
Than the young lambs, that from the valley side 
Send a soft bleating, like an infant's voice, 
Half happy, half afraid ! O blessed things ! 
•At sight of this your perfect innocence. 
The sterner thoughts of manhood melt away 
Into a mood as mild as woman's dreams. 



A NIGHT AT SEA. 

It is the midnight hour : the beauteous sea. 

Calm as the cloudless heaven, the heaven discloses. 

While many a sparkling star, in quiet glee. 
Far down within the watery sky reposes. 

As if the Ocean's heart were stirr'd 

With inward life, a sound is heard, 



478 WILSON. 

Like that of dreamer murmuring in his sleep ; 
'Tis partly the billow, and partly the air, 
That lies like a garment floating fair 

Above the happy deep. 
The sea, I ween, cannot be fann'd 
By evening freshness from the land, 

For the land it is far away ; 
But God hath will'd that the sky-born breeze 
In the centre of the loneliest seas 

Should ever sport and play. 
The mighty Moon she sits above, 
Encircled with a zone of love, 
A zone of dim and tender light, 
Tliat makes her wakeful eye more bright : 
She seems to shine with a sunny ray, 
And the night looks like a mellow'd day I 
The gracious Mistress of the Main 
Hath now an undisturbed reign. 
And from her silent throne looks down. 
As upon children of her own. 
On the waves that lend their gentle breast 
In gladness for her couch of rest ! 



TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. JAMES GRAHAME, THE POET 
OF SCOTLAND. 

How beautiful is genius when combined 
With holiness ! Oh, how divinely sweet 
The tones of earthly harp, whose chords are touch'd 
By the soft hand of Piety, and hung 
Upon Religion's shrine, there vibrating 
With solemn music in the ear of God ! 
And must the bard from sacred themes refrain ? 
Sweet were the hynnis in patriarchal days. 
That, kneeling in the silence of his tent, 
Or on some moonlight liiil, the shepherd pour'd 
Unto his heavenly Father. Strains survive, 
Erst chanted to the lyre of Israel, 
More touching far than ever poet breathed 
Amid the Grecian isles, or later times 
Have heard in Albion, land of every lay. 



Such glory, Grahame ! thine. Thou didst despise 
To win the ear of this degenerate age 
By gorgeous epithets, all idly heap'd. 
On theme of earthly state, or, idler still, 
By tinkling measures and unchasten'd lays, 
Warbled to pleasure and her siren train. 
Profaning the best name of poesy. 
With loftier aspirations, and an aim 
More worthy man's immortal nature, thou 
That holiest Spirit that still loves to dwell 
In the upright heart and pure, at noon of night 



I 



CAROLINE ANNE SOUTHEY. 479 

Didst fervently invoke, and, led by her 

Above the Aonian mount, send from the stars 

Of heaven such soul-subduing melody 

As Bethlehem shepherds heard when Christ was born. 



THE EVENING CLOUD— A SONNET. 

A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun, 

A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow ; 
Long had I watch'd the glory moving on 

O'er the still radiance of the lake below; 

Tranquil its spirit seem'd, and floated slow, 
E'en in its very motion there was rest ; 

While every breath of eve that chanced to blow 
Wafted the traveller to the beauteous west. 

Emblem, methought, of the departed soul. 
To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given, 

And by the breath of mercy made to roll 
Eight onward to the golden gates of heaven, 

Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies. 

And tells to man his glorious destinies. 



CAROLINE ANNE SOUTHEY, 1787-185 J^. 

No English poetess has touched more tenderly the chords of the heart, or 
has gone down deeper into its well-springs, than Caroline Anne Bowles, after- 
wards Mrs. Southey. She was the daughter of Charles Bowles, Esq., of Buck- 
land, and was born in 1787. She early showed great marks of genius, and 
especially a fondness for poetry. In 1820 she published her first work, Ellen 
Fiizartkur, a Metrical Tale; and shortly after. The Widoiv's Tale, and other 
Poems. These were followed by Birthday and other Poems; Solitary Hours, 
Poems; Tales «/ the Factories ; Chapters on Churchyards; and a collection of 
prose and poetical pieces. 

On the 6th of June, 1839, she became the second wife of the poet Southey, 
to whose declining and infirm age she ministered with the tenderness and 
sweet sympathy which kindred taste, admiring affection, and Christian love 
inspired, doing all that mortal power could do to render the last, sad years of 
the illustrious poet easy and comfortable. She wrote for him when he could 
no longer write, read to him when he was not allowed to read himself, and 
watched over him with untiring assiduity when he was no longer sensible of 
the value and devotion of these services. He died on the 21st of March, 1843, 
after which she spent most of her years in close retirement, and died in 1854. 

"No man," says Mr. Moir, "could have written such poetry as Mrs. Southey; 
at least no man has ever yet done so; it breathes of *a purer ether, a diviner 
air' than that respired by the soi-disant lords of the creation; and, in its freedom 
from all moral blemish and blot, from all harshness and austerity of senti- 
ment, from all the polluting taints which are apt to cleave to human thought, 
and its expansive sympathy with all that is holy, just, and of good report, it 
elevates the heart even more than it delights the fancy. We doubt if the 



480 



CAROLINE ANNE SOUTHEY. 



English language possesses any thing more profoundly pathetic tnan Mrs. 
Southey's four tales, The Young -Gray Head, The Murder Glen, Walter and 
William, and The JSvening Walk; and I envy not the heart-construction of 
that family group of which the father could read these compositions aloud to 
his children either himself with an unfaltering voice, or without exciting their 
tears." 

The following lyrics need no commendation from the critic : they reach 
eyery heart. J 

MARINER'S HYMN. ^ 



Launch thy bark, mariner ! 

Christian, God speed thee ; 
Let loose the rudder bands, 

Good angels lead thee! 
Set thy sails warily, 

Tempests will come ; 
Steer thy course steadily, 

Christian, steer home I 

Look to the weather bow. 

Breakers are round thee ; 
Let fall the plummet now, 

Shallows may ground thee. 
Eeef in the foresail, there ! 

Hold the helm fast! 
So, — let the vessel wear, — 

There swept the blast. 

What of the night, watchman ? 

What of the night ? 
" Cloudy, all quiet, — 

No land yet, — all's right." 



Be wakeful, be vigilant, — 

Danger may be 
At an hour when all scemeth 

Securest to thee. 

How! gains the leak so fast? 

Clear out the hold, — 
Hoist up thy merchandise, 

Heave out thy gold ; 
There, let the ingots go ; — 

Now the ship rights; 
Hurra! the harbor's near, — 

Lo ! the red lights. 

Slacken not sail yet 

At inlet or island ; 
Straight for the beacon steer. 

Straight for the high land ; 
Crowd all thy canvas on. 

Cut through the foam ; — 
Christian ! cast anchor now, — 

Heaven is thy home ! 



SANCTIFIED AFFLICTIONS, 

1 weep, but not rebellious tears ; 

I mourn, but not in hopeless woe ; 
I droop, but not with doubtful fears ; 

For whom I've trusted. Him 1 know. 
Lord, I believe, assuage my grief. 
And help, oh 1 help my unbelief. 

My days of youth and health are o'er ; 

My early friends are dead and gone ; 
And there are times it tries me sore 

To think I'm left on earth alone. 
But yet Faith whispers, *"Tis not so: 
He will not leave, nor let thee go." 

Blind eyes, fond heart, poor soul, that sought 
For lasting bliss in things of earth ; 

Eeraembering but with transient thought 
Thy heavenly home, thy second birth ; 

Till God in mercy broke at last 

The bonds that held thee down so fast. 



CAROLINE ANNE S OUTSET. 481 

As link by link was rent away, 

My heart Avept blood, so sharp the pain ; 
But I have learn'd to count, this day, 

That temporal loss, etei'nal gain ; 
For all that once detain'd me here 
' Now draws me to a holier sphere ; 

A holier sphere, a happier place, 

Where I shall know as I am known, 
And see my Saviour face to face, v 

And meet rejoicing round His throne 
The iaithful souls made perfect there 
From earthly stains and mortal care. 

The following is an analysis of one of her most pathetic tales, entitled The 
Young Gray Head. It opens with a cottager warning his wife to keep the 
children from school that morning, from the signs of an impending storm: — 

THE YOUNG GRAY HEAD. 

I'm thinking that to-night, if not before. 
There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton roar? 
It's brewing up, down westward ; and look there ! 
One of those sea-gulls ! ay, there goes a pair ; 
And such a sudden thaw ! If rain comes on, 
As threats, the waters will be out anon. 
That path by the ford's a nasty bit of way — 
Best let the young ones bide from school to-day. 

The children themselves join in this request; but the mother resolves that 
they should set out, — the two girls, Lizzy and Jenny, the one five and the other 
Beven. The dame's will was law ,• so, 

One last fond kiss — 
" God bless my little maids !" the father said ; 
And cheerily went his way to win their bread. 

Prepared for their journey, they depart, with the mother's admonitions to the 
elder : — 

" Now, mind and bring 
Jenny safe home," the mother said. " Don't stay 
To pull a bough or berry by the way ; 
And when you come to cross the ford, hold fast 
Your little sister's hand till you're quite past — 
That plank's so crazy, and so slippery. 
If not o'erflow'd, the stepping-stones will be. 
But you're good children — steady as old folk ; 
I'd trust ye anywhere." Then Lizzy's cloak 
(A good gray dufHe) lovingly she tied. 
And amply little Jenny's lack supplied 
With her own warmest shawl. " Be sure," said she, 
" To wrap it round, and "knot it carefully 
(Like this), when you come home, — just leaving free 
One hand to hold by. Now, make haste away — 
Good will to school, and then good right to I3lay." 

The mother watched them as they went down the lane, overburdened with 

41 



482 CAROLINE ANNE SOUTHEY. 

Bomethinglike a foreboding of evil which she strove to overcome; but could not 
during the day quite bear up against her own thoughts, more especially as the 
threatened storm did at length set in. His labor done, the husband makes 
his three miles' way homeward, until his cottage coming into view, all its plea- 
sant associations of spring, summer, and autumn, with its thousand family de- 
lights, rush on his heart : — 

There was a treasure hidden in his hat, — 

A plaything for his young ones. He had found 

A dormouse nest, — the living ball coil'd round 

For its long winter sleep ; and all his thought, 

As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of naught 

But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes, 

And graver Lizzy's quieter surprise, ■ 

When he should yield, by guess and kiss and prayer, T 

Hard won, the frozen captive to their care. 

Out rushes his fondling dog Tinker, but no little faces greet him as wont at 
the threshold; and to his hurried question, "Are they come? — 'twas no." 

To throw his tools down, hastily unhook 

The old crack'd lantern from its dusty nook, 3l 

And, while he lit it, speak a cheering word ' 

That almost choked him, and was scarcely heard, 

Was but a moment's act, and he was gone 

To where a fearful foresight led him on. 

A neighbor accompanies him; and they strike into the track which the chil- 
dren should have taken in their way back, — now calling aloud on them through 
the pitchy darkness, and now by the lantern-light scrutinizing "thicket, bole, 
and nook," till the dog, brushing past them with a bark, shows them that h© 
is on their track : — 

" Hold the light 
Low down — he's making for the water. Hark ! 
I know that whine — The old dog's found them, Mark." 
So speaking, breathlessly he hurried on 
Toward the old crazy foot-bridge. It was gone ! 
And all his dull contracted light could show 
AVas the black, void, and dark swollen stream below. 
" Yet there's life somewhere — more than Tinker's whine — 
That's sure," said Mark. " So, let the lantern shine 
Down yonder. There's the dog — and hark I" 

"Oh, dear!" 
And a low sob came faintly on the ear, 
Mock'd by the sobbing gust. Down, quick as thought, 
Into the stream leap'd Ambrose, where he caught 
Fast hold of something — a dark huddled heap — 
Half in the water, where 'twas scarce knee-deep 
For a tall man, and half above it propp'd 
By some old ragged side-piles that had stopt 
Endways the broken plank Avhen it gave way 
With the two little ones that luckless day ! 
" My babes ! my lambkins !" was the father's cry. 
One little voice made answer, " Here am I !" — 
'Twas Lizzy's. There she crouch'd, with face as white, 
More ghastly, by the flickering lantern-light, 
Than sheeted corpse. The -pale blue liiss drawn tight, 



MONTG OMER Y. 4S3 

Wide parted, showing all the pearly teeth, 

And eyes on some dark object underneath, 

Wash'd by the turbid Avater, fix'd like stone, — 

One arm and hand stretch'd out, and rigid grown, 

Grasping, as in the death-gripe, Jenny's frock. 

There she lay drown' d. -x- * * 

They lifted her from out her watery bed — 

Its covering gone, the lovely little head 

Hung like a broken snow-drop, all aside, 

And one small hand. The mother's shawl was tied, 

Leaving that free about the child's small form, 

As was her last injunction — " fast and warm" — 

Too we!l obey'd, — too fast ! A fatal hold, 

Afibrding ta the scrag, by a thick fold 

That caught and pinn'd her to the river's bed : 

While through the reckless water overhead 

Her life-breath bubbled up. 

We pass over the cruel self-upbraidings of the mother: — 

" She might have lived. 
Struggling like Lizzy," was the thought that rived 
The wretched mother's heart, when she knew all, 
" But for my foolishness about that shawl," — 

a torture aggravated by the tones of the surviving child, who half deliriously 

kept on ejaculating, — 

''Who says I forgot? 
Mother ! indeed, indeed I kept fast hold. 
And tied the shawl quite close — she can't be cold — 
But she won't move — we slept — I don't know how — 
But I held on — and I'm so weary now — 
And it's so dark and cold ! — oh dear ! oh dear ! — 
And she won't move — if daddy was but here !" 

From their despair for the lost, the poor parents turned to their almost 
forlorn hope in the living, as — 

All night long from side to side she turn'd, 
Piteously plaining like a woimded dove. 
With now and then the murmur, " She won't move." 
And lo ! when morning, as in mockery, bright 
Shone on that pillow, — passing strange the sight, — 
The young head's raven hair was streak'd with white I 






JAMES MONTGOMERY, 177 1-185 Jf.. 

James Montgomery, the author of The Wanderer of Switzerland, The West 
Indies, and other poems, was the son of a Moravian preacher, and was born at 
Irviue, in Ayrshire, November' 4, 1771. When seven years old, he was placed 
at a Moravian seminary at Fulneck, in Yorkshire. Here, among this people, 
remarkable for their ardor in religion, he received his education, and made 
commendable proficiency in the Greek, Latin, German, and French languages, 



484 



MONTGOMERY. 



and in his English studies. He early evinced a taste for poetry; but his poetic 
wares did not meet with very ready sale in the market, and in 1792 he esta- 
blished himself in Sheffield as an assistant in a newspaper office, — the Sheffield 
Register. Two years after, the publisher, Mr. Gales, being obliged to fly from 
England to avoid a prosecution, our author iindertook the editorship and pub- 
lication of the paper. He soon got himself into trouble, being prosecuted for 
printing a ballad, written by a clergyman of Belfast, in commemoration of the 
destruction of the Bastile, which was, in that period of great political agitation, 
interpreted into a seditious libel. He was convicted, and sentenced to a fine 
of twenty pounds and three months' imprisonment in York Castle. 

On returning to his editorial duties, he abstained as ^uch as possible from 
politics; but in January, 1795, he was tried for a second imputed political 
offence,— a paragraph in his paper which reflected on the conduct of a magis- 
trate in quelling a riot at Sheffield. He was again convicted, and sentenced to • 
six months' imprisonment, to pay a fine of thirty pounds, and to give security 
to keep the peace for two years. "All the persons," says the amiable poet, 
writing in 1840, "who were actively concerned in the prosecutions against me 
in 1794 and 1795, are dead, and, without exception, they died in peace with 
me. I believe I am quite correct in saying that from each of them distinctly, 
in the sequel, I received tokens of good will, and from several of them sub- 
Btantial proofs of kindness." 

In the spring of 1797 he printed his Prison Amusements, — the production of 
his pen during his recent confinement. In 1805 he published The Ocean, and 
the next year The Wanderer of Switzerland, and other Poems, which, in spite of 
a very ill-natured criticism in the Edinburgh Review,'^ soon rose into popularity, 
and completely established the reputation of the author as a poet. His next 
work was The West Indies, which appeared in 1809, written in honor of the 
abolition of the African slave-trade by the British legislature in 1807. In vigor 
and freedom of description, and in fine pathetic painting, this poem is much 
superior to any thing in his first volume. In 1812 appeared The World he- 
fore the Flood, a poem in the English heroic couplet, consisting of ten short 
cantos, of which a writer in the Monthly Magazine justly remarked that "no 
man of taste or feeling can possibly read it without wishing to make others 
participate in the pleasure he has derived from it." He next published (1817) 
Thoughts on Wheels, directed against lotteries; and The Climhing- Boy's Solilo- 
quies, to enlist the sympathies of the public in favor of the chimney-sweeps. 
In 1819 appeared Greenland, containing a sketch of the ancient Moravian 
church and its missions in Greenland. The only other long poem of Mr. Mont- 
gomery is The Pelican Island, describing the haunts of the pelican in the 
small islands on the coast of New Holland. ^ Besides these, he has written a 
number of sacred lyrics, which rank among the best in the language. 



1 The Edinburgh Review, twenty-eight years 
afterwards, thus speaks of Montgomery's 
poetry: — "Gradually with every successive 
production, the excrescences of our author's 
early style have been pruned away. Earnest- 
ness has succeeded to affectation; a manly 
simplicity of thought and reserve of expres- 
sion, to the flowery exuberance and strained 
conceits of youth; overcharged and almost 
whining pathos has softened into a more 
chastened, natural, and unobtrusive tender- 
ness; and a spirit of religion, profound and 
awe-inspiring, yet withal cheerful and con- 



solatory, forming a part of the man himself, 
pervades and informs all his works, till the 
poet, who seemed at one time too likely to 
prolong the absurdities of the ' Delia Crusca 
School,' has taken his place, not unworthily, 
among the classics of the nation." — Edinburgh 
Bevieiv, Ixi. 473. In the sixth volume of the 
London Quarterly is a very severe notice of the 
early criticism of the Edinburgh, — critic cen- 
suring critic. 

2 " This poem abounds in minute and deli- 
cate description of natural phenomena, — has 
great felicity of diction and expression, — and, 



MONTGOMERY. 485 

In 1825, Mr. Montgomery retired from the editorship of the Sheffield news- 
paper, which post he had filled for more than thirty years. On this occasion 
his friends and neighbors invited him to a public entertainment. "There the 
happy and grateful poet ' ran through the story of his life even from his boyish 
days/ when he came among them friendless and a stranger, from his retire- 
ment at Fulneck among the Moravian brethren, by whom he was educated in 
all but knowledge of the world. He spoke with pardonable pride of the suc- 
cess which had crowned his labors as an author. * * * I wrote neither to 
suit the manners, the taste, nor the temper of the age; but I appealed to uni- 
versal principles, to unperishable affections, to primary elements of our com- 
mon natvire, found wherever man is found in civilized society, wherever his 
mind has been raised above barbarian ignorance, or his passions purified from 
brutal selfishness.'" 

In 1830 and 1831 our author was selected to deliver a course of lectures at the 
Royal Institution, on Poetry and General Literature. This he prepared for the 
press, and it appeared in 1833 ; and a more interesting and instructive work on 
general literature, in the same compass, can hardly be found, "A collected 
edition of his works, with autobiographical and illustrated matter, was issued 
in 1841, in four volumes,^ and they are volumes of great value; for though he 
cannot be ranked among the first class of the poets of the nineteenth century 
for power or suggestiveness, yet his verse is always melodious, his descriptions 
are beautiful and picturesque, and a tone of generous and enlightened morality 
pervades all his writings. He was the enemy of the slave-trade and of every 
form of oppression, and the warm friend of every scheme of philanthropy and 
improvement. The pious and devotional feelings displayed in his early effu- 
sions grew with his growth, and form the staple of his poetry. In descrip- 
tion, however, he is not less happy ; and in his Greenland and Pelican Island 
there are passages of great beauty, evincing a refined taste and judgment in 
the selection of his materials. His late works have more vigor and variety 
than those by which he first became distinguished. Indeed, his fame was long 
confined to what is termed the religious world, till he showed, by his cultiva- 
tion of different styles of poetry, that his depth and sincerity of feeling, the 
simplicity of his taste, and the picturesque beauty of his language, were not 
restricted to purely spiritual themes. Of his smaller poems we can scarcely 
speak too warmly. In their kind they are perhaps unrivalled, except by those 
of Moore. They are polished gems, touched and retouched with a loving and 
gifted hand. Many of them have become, and must continue to be, general 
favorites with the people, from their musical flow and their happy expression 
and imagery; while his sacred lyrics will ever be embalmed in the hearts 
of the Christian church, prized equally with the best efi'usions of Wesley or 
Cowper or Watts." 

THE LOVE OF COUNTRY AND OF HOME. 

There is a land, of every land the pride, 
Beloved by heaven, o'er all the world beside ; 
Where brighter suns dispense serener light, 
And milder moons emparadise the night ; 



altogether, possesses more of the power and 
fertility of the master than any other of the 
authors works." — Chambers's Cyc. Eng. Lit. 
1 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of James 



Montgomery, including Selections from, his Cor- 
respondence. Remains in Prose and Verse, and 
Conrersatirms on Various Subjects, by John 
Holland and James Everett, 4 vols. 



41* 



486 



MONTGOMERY, 



A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth, 

Time-tutor'd age, and love-exalted youth : 

The wandering mariner, whose eye explores 

The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, 

Views not a realm so bountiful and fair, 

Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air ; 

In every clime the magnet of his soul, 

Touch'd by remembrance, trembles to that pole; 

For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace, 

The heritage of nature's noblest race. 

There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 

A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest : 

Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside 

His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride, 

While in his soften'd looks benignly blend 

The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend : 

Here woman reigns ; the mother, daughter, wife, 

Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life ; 

In the clear heaven of her delightful eye. 

An angel-guard of loves and graces lie ; 

Around her knees domestic duties meet, 

And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. 

" Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found ?" 

Art thou a man ? — a patriot ? — look around ; 

Oh, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps toam. 

That land thy country, and that spot thy home I^ 

The West Indies. 
NIGHT. 

Night is the time for rest ; 

How sweet, when labors close, 
To gather round an aching breast 

The curtain of repose. 
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head 
Upon our own delightful bed ! 

Night is the time for dreams ; 

The gay romance of life, 
When truth that is, and truth that seems, 

Blend in fantastic strife ; 
Ah ! visions less beguiling far 
Than waking dreams by daylight are ! 

Night is the time for toil f 

To plough the classic field, 
Intent to find the buried spoil 

Its wealthy furrows yield ; 



1 " As the vine, which has long twined its 
graceful foliage about the oak and been lifted 
by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant 
is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it 
with its caressing tendrils and bind up its 
shattered boughs; so is it beautifully ordered 
by Providence that woman, who is the mere 
dependent and ornament of man in his happier 
hours, should be his stay and solace when 
smitten with sudden calamity; winding her- 
self into the rugged recesses of his nature, 



tenderly supporting the drooping head, and 
binding up the broken heart."— Washington 
Irving. 

2 Without any wish to make pedantic objec- 
tions, we may be allowed to remark that this 
stanza is inconsistent with natural truth and 
a just economy of life. Day is the time for 
toil; night, for repose, and, if too much ot it 
be spent in mental labor, in addition to other 
duties pursued during the day, it must redound 
to the injury of health. 



MONTGOMERY. 487 

Till all is ours that sages taught, 
That poets sang, or heroes wrought. 

Kight is the time to weep ; 

To wet witii unseen tears 
Those graves of nieniory, where sleep 

The joys of other years ; 
Hopes that were angels in their birth, 
But perish'd young, like things on earth ! 

Night is the time to watch ; 

On ocean's dark expanse 
To hail the Pleiades, or catch 

The full moon's earliest glance, 
That brings unto the homesick mind 
All we have loved and left behind. 

Night is the time for care; 

Brooding on hours misspent, 
To see the spectre of despair 

Come to our lonely tent; 
Like Brutus, midst his slumbering host, 
Startled by Ctesar's stalwart ghost. 

Night is the time to muse; 

Then from the eye the soul 
Takes flight, and, with expanding views, 

Beyond the starry pole. 
Descries, athwart the abyss of night, 
The dawn of uncreated light. 

Night is the time to pray ; 

Our Saviour oft withdrew 
To desert mountains far away; 

So will his followers do; 
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod. 
And hold communion there with God. 

Night is the time for death ; 

When all around is peace. 
Calmly to yield the weary breath, 

From sin and suflfering cease; 
Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign 
To parting friends : — such death be mine ! 



ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH. 

Higher, higher will we climb 

Up the mount of glory, 
That our names may live through time 

In our country's story; 
Happy, wiien her welfare calls. 
He who conquers, he who falls. 

Deeper, deeper let us toil 
In the mines of knowledge; 



488 MONTGOMERY. 

Nature's wealth and learning's spoil 

Win from school and college; 
Delve we there for richer gems 
Than the stars of diadems. 

Onward, onward may we press 
Through the path of duty ; 

Virtue is true happiness, 
Excellence true beauty. 

Minds are of celestial birth ; 

Make we, then, a heaven of earth. 

Closer, closer let us knit 
Hearts and hands together, 

Where our fireside comforts sit, 
In the wildest weather; 

Oh ! they wander wide Avho roam, 

For the joys of life, from home. 

Nearer, nearer, bands of love 
Draw our souls in union. 

To our Father's house above, 
To the saints' communion; 

Thitlier every hope ascend. 

There may all our labors end. 



THE C 31310 N LOT. 

Once, in the flight of ages past, 

There lived a man: and who was he? 

Mortal ! howe'er thy lot be cast, 
That man resembled thee. 

Unknown the region of his birth. 

The land in which he died unknown: 

His name has perish'd from the earth, 
This truth survives alone : — 

That joy, and grief, and hope, and fear. 
Alternate triumph'd in his breast; 

His bliss and wo — a smile, a tear ! 
Oblivion hides the rest. 

The bounding pulse, the languid limb, 
The changing spirits' rise and fall ; 

We know that these were felt by him, 
For these are felt by all. 

He suffer' d — but his pangs are o'er; 

Enjoy'd — but his delights are fled; 
Had friends — his friends are now no more ; 

And foes — his foes are dead. 

He loved — but whom he loved the grave 
Hath lost in its unconscious womb: 

Oh, she was fair ! but nauglit could save 
Her beauty from the tomb. 



MONTGOMERY. 489 

He saw whatever tliou hast seen ; 

Encouiiter'd all that troubles thee; 
He was — whatever thou hast been ; 

He is — what thou shalt be. 

The rolling seasons — day and night, 

Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main, 
Erewhile his portion, life and light, 

To him exist in vain. 

The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye 

That once their shades and glory threw, 
Have left in yonder silent sky 

No vestige where they flew. 

The annals of the human race. 

Their ruins, since the world began, 
Of him afford no other trace 

Than this — there lived a man ! 



FRIEND AFTER FRIEND DEPARTS. 

Friend after friend departs ; 

Who hath not lost a friend? 
There is no union here of hearts 

That finds not here an end: 
Were this frail world our final rest. 
Living or dying, none were blest. 

Beyond this flight of time — 

Beyond the reign of death — 
There surely is some blessed clime 

Where life is not a breath. 
Nor life's affections transient fire. 
Whose sparks fly upward and expire. 

There is a world above, 

Where parting is unknown ; 
A long eternity of love, 

Form'd for the good alone. 
And faith beholds the dying, here. 
Translated to that glorious sphere ! 

Thus star by star declines, 

Till all are past away, 
As morning high and higher shines 

To pure and perfect day ; 
Nor sink those stars in empty night. 
But liide themselves in heaven's own light. 

HimiLITY. 

The bird that soars on highest wing 
Builds on the ground her lowly nest; 

And she that doth most sweetly sing 
Sings in the shade when all things rest: 

— In lark and nightingale we see 

What honor hath humility. 



490 MONTGOMERY. 

When Mary cliose "the better part," 

She meekly sat at Jesas' feet; 
And Lydia's gently-open'd heart 

Was made lor God's own temple meet; 
— Fairest and best adorn'd is she 
Whose clothing is humility. 

The saint that wears heaven's brightest crown 

In deepest adoration bends; 
The weight of glory bows him down 

Then most when most his soul ascends ; 
— Nearest the throne itself must be 
The footstool of humility. 

THE SUPERIORITY OF POETRY OVER SCULPTURE AND 
PAINTING. 

Let US bring — not into gladiatorial conflict, bu.t into honorable 
competition, where neither can suffer disparagement — one of the 
masterpieces of ancient sculpture, and two stanzas from Childe 
Harold, in which that very statue is turned into verse which 
seems almost to make it visible : — 

THE DYING GLADIATOR. 

"I see before me the Gladiator lie: 
He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony ; 
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low ; 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
The arena swims around him, — he is gone. 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout that liail'd the wretch who won." 

Now, all this, sculpture has embodied in perpetual marble, and 
every association touched upon in the description might spring 
up in a well-instructed mind while contemplating the insulated 
figure which personifies the expiring champion. Painting might 
take up the same subject, and represent the amphitheatre thronged 
to the height with ferocious faces, all bent upon the exulting con- 
queror and his prostrate antagonist, — a thousand for one of them 
sympathizing rather with the transport of the former than the 
agony of the latter. Here, then, sculpture and painting have 
reached their climax ; neither of them can give the actual thoughts 
of the personages whom they exhibit so palpably to the outward 
sense, tha.t the character of those thoughts cannot be mistaken. 
Poetry goes further than both ; and when one of the sisters has | 
laid down her chisel, the other her pencil, she continues heri 
strain; wherein, having already sung what each has pictured,] 
she thus reveals that secret of the sufferer's breaking heart, which] 
neither of them could intimate by any visible sign. But we must 
return to the swoon of the dying man : — 



MONTGOMERY. 491 

" The arena swims around liim, — he is gone, 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout that hail'd the wretch who won. 

" He heard it, but he heeded not, — his eyes 
Were with his heart, and that was far away ; 
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize, 
— But, where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
There were his young barbarians all at play, 
There was their Dacian mother ; he, their sire, 
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday ; 
All this rush'd with his blood." -x- ^ * 

Myriads of eyes had gazed upon that statue ; through myriads 
of minds all the images and ideas connected with the combat and 
the fall, the spectators and the scene, had passed in the presence 
of that unconscious marble which has given immortality to the 
pangs of death ; but not a soul among all the beholders through 
eighteen centuries — not one — had ever before thought of the 
" rude hut," the " Dacian mother," the " young barbarians." At 
length came the poet of passion, and, looking down upon "The 
Dying Gladiator" (less as what it was than what it represented), 
turned the marble into 'man, and endowed it with human affec- 
tions ; then, away over the Apennines and over the Alps, away, 
on the wings of irrepressible sympathy, flew his spirit to the 
banks of the Danube, where, " with his heart," were the " eyes" 
of the victim, under the nightfall of death ; for " there were his 
young barbarians all at play, and there their Dacian mother." 
This is nature; this is truth. While the conflict continued, the 
combatant thought of himself only, he aimed at nothing but 
victory ; when life and this were lost, his last thoughts, his sole 
"thoughts, would turn to his wife and his little children. • 

Lecture First. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF PROSE AND VERSE. 

There is reason as well as custom in that conventional sim- 
plicity which best becomes prose, and that conventional orna- 
ment which is allowed to verse ; but splendid ornament is no 
more essential to verse than naked simplicity is to prose. The 
gravest critics place tragedy in the highest rank of poetical 
achievements : — 

" Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy, 
With sceptred pall, come sAveeping by, 
Presenting Tliebes' or Pelops' line, 
Or the tale of Troy divine." — II Fenseroso. 

Yet the noblest, most impassioned scenes are frequently dis- 
tinguished from prose only by the cadence of the verse, which, in 
this species of composition, is permitted to be so loose, that, 
where the diction is the most exquisite, the melody of the rhythm 



492 MONTGOMERY. 

can scarcely be perceived, except by the nicest ear. King Lear, 
driven to madness by the ingratitude and cruelty of his two 
elder daughters, is found by the youngest, Cordelia, asleep upon 
a bed in a tent in the French camp, after having passed the night 
in the open air, exposed to the fury of the elements during a 
tremendous thunder-storm. A physician and attendants are 
watching over the sufferer. While the dutiful daughter is pour- 
ing out her heart in tenderness over him, recounting his wrongs, 
his afflictions, and the horrors of the storm, the king awakes ; 
but w^e will take the scene itself After some inquiries concern- 
ing his royal patient, the physician asks : — 

"So please your majesty, 
That we may wake the king ? He hath slept long. 

Cordelia. — Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed 
r the sway of your own will. Is he array'd ? 

Gentleman. — Ay, madam ; in the heaviness of his sleep 
We put fresh garments on him. 

Physician. — Be by, good madam, when we do awake him ; 
I doubt not of his temperance. * 

Cordelia. — Very well. 

Physician. — Please you, draw near. Louder the music there ! 

Cordelia. — Oh, my dear father ! Eestoration, hang 

Thy medicine on my lips ; and let this kiss 
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters 
Have in thy reverence made ! 

Kent. — Kind and dear princess ! 
Cordelia. — Had you not been their father, these white flakes 
Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face 
To be exposed against the warring winds ? 
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder ? 
In the most terrible and nimble stroke 
Of quick, cross lightning ? * * * 
ifr ^ ^ ^ "^ Mine enemy's dog, 
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night 
Against my fire. And wast thou fain, poor father, 
To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn. 
In short and musty straw ? Alack ! alack ! 
'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once 
Had not concluded all. He wakes ; speak to him. 

Physician. — Madam, do you ; 'tis fittest. 
Cordelia. — How does my royal lord ? How fares your majesty ? 
Lear. — You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave : — 
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound 
Upon a wheel of fire. 
Cordelia. — Sir, do you know me ? 

Lear. — You are a spirit, I know ; when did you die ? 
Cordelia. — Still, still far wide. 
Physician. — He's scarce awake : let him alone awhile. 



MONTGOMERY. 493 

Lear. — Where have I been ? Where am I ? Fair daylight ? — 
I am mightily abused. I should even die with pity 
To see another thus. I know not what to say. 
I will not swear these are my hands : — let's see ; 
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured 
Of my condition ! 

Cordelia. — Oh, look upon me, sir ! 

And hold your hands in benediction o'er me :r- 
Nay, sir, you must not kneel. 
Lear. — Pray, do not mock me ; 

I am a very foolish, fond old man, 
Fourscore and upward ; and, to deal plainly, 
I fear I am not in my perfect mind. 
Methinks I should knoAV you, and know this man ; 
Yet I am doubtful ; for I am mainly ignorant 
What place this is ; and all the skill I have 
Remembers not these garments ; nor I know not 
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me ; 
For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
; To be my child Cordelia ! 

Cordelia. — And so I am ; I am." 

It cannot be doubted that the whole of this scene is poetry of 
the highest proof; and yet, except in the passage referring to the 
storm (in which those wonderful lines descriptive of the lightning 
might have been struck out by the flash itself), there is scarcely 
a phrase which could not have been employed in the humblest 
prose record of this conversation. Try the experiment ; break 
up the rhythm, the only thing that constitutes the lines verse, 
and mark the issue ; the same sentiments will remain, in nearly 
the same words ; yet the latter being diiferently collocated, and 
wanting the inimitable cadence of such verse as none but Shak- 
speare has been able to construct, the charm will be broken, and 
the pathos subdued, though no mutilation could destroy it. How 
much the power of poetry depends upon the nice inflections of 
rhythm alone, may be proved by taking the finest passages of 
Milton or Shakspeare, and merely putting them into prose, with 
the least possible variation of the words themselves. The attempt 
would be like gathering up dew-drops, which appear jewels and 
pearls on the grass, but run into water in the hand : the essence 
and the elements remain, but the grace, the sparkle, and the 
form are gone. — Lecture Third. 

THE PERMANENCE OF WORDS. 

An eloquent but extravagant writer has hazarded the assertion 
that "words are the only things that last forever."* Nor is this 
merely a splendid saying, or a startling paradox, that may be 

I The late Mr. William Hazlitt. 
42 



494 MONTGOMERY. 

qualified by explanation into commonplace ; but witli respect to 
man, and his works on earth, it is literally true. Temples and 
palaces, amphitheatres and catacombs, — monuments of power, 
and magnificence, and skill, to perpetuate the memory, and pre- 
serve even the ashes, of those who lived in past ages, — must, in 
the revolutions of mundane events, not only perish themselves by 
violence or decay, but the very dust in which they perish be so 
scattered as to leave no trace of their material existence behind. 
There is no security beyond the passing moment for the most 
permanent or the most precious of these; they are as much in 
jeopardy as ever, after having escaped the changes and chances 
of thousands of years. An earthquake may suddenly engulf the 
pyramids of Egypt, and leave the sand of the desert as blank as 
the tide would have left it on the sea-shore. A hammer in the 
hand of an idiot may break to pieces the Apollo Belvedere, or 
the Venus de Medici, which are scarcely less worshipped as 
miracles of art in our day, than they were by idolaters of old as 
rej^resentatives of deities. 

Looking abroad over the whole world^ after the lapse of nearly 
six thousand years, what have we of the past but the words in 
which its history is recorded ? What, besides a few mouldering 
and brittle ruins, which time is imperceptibly touching down into 
dust, what, besides these, remains of the glory, the grandeur, the 
intelligence, the supremacy, of the Grecian republics, or the 
empire of Rome ? Nothing but the words of poets, historians, 
philosophers, and orators, who, being dead, yet speak, and in 
their immortal works still maintain their dominion over inferior 
minds through all posterity. And these intellectual sovereigns 
not only govern our spirits from the tomb by the power of their 
thoughts, but their very voices are heard by our living ears in 
the accents of their mother-tongues. The beauty, the eloquence 
and art of these collocations of sounds and syllables, the learned 
alone can appreciate, and that only (in some cases) after long, 
intense, and laborious investigation ; but, as thought can be made 
to transmigrate from one body of words into another, even through 
all the languages of the earth, without losing what may be called 
its personal identity, the great minds of antiquity continue to 
hold their ascendency over the opinions, manners, characters, in- 
stitutions, and events of all ages and nations through which their 
posthumous compositions have found way, and been made the 
earliest subjects of study, the highest standards of morals, and 
the most perfect examples of taste, to the master-minds in every 
state of civilized society. In this respect the " words" of inspired 
prophets and apostles among the Jews, and those of gifted writen 
among the ancient Gentiles, may truly be said to " last forever.' 
— Metrosjaect of Literature. 



HARE. 495 



THE BROTHERS HARE, 1794.-1855. 

Few books contain more gems of instructive and suggestive thought than 
the two volumes of Guesses at Truth, first and second series, by the two 
brothers, Augustus William and Charles Julius Hare, clergymen of the Church 
of England. Augustus William, the elder, was born in 1794; became rector 
of Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, and died at Rome, February 18, 1834. The younger 
was born 1796; educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; instituted to the 
rectory of Hurst Monceaux, Sussex, in 1832 ; appointed Archdeacon of Lewes 
in 1840 ; and died at Hurst Monceaux, January 27, 1855.1 The duty of editing 
their joint productions devolved, of course, upon the latter, whose contributions 
are marked by the letter U, while those with other marks were written either 
by his brother, or by some congenial friends. In the original preface the 
editor says, — 

"If I am addressing one of that numerous class who need to be told what 
to think, let me advise you to meddle with the book no further. You wish to 
buy a house ready furnished: do not come to look for it in a stone-quarry. 
But, if you are building up your own opinions for yourself, and only want to 
be provided with materials, you may meet with many things in these pages 
to suit you." 

Besides his contributions to the Guesses at Truth, the archdeacon published 
a number of Sermons ; translated, 1828, in conjunction with Rev. C. Thirlwall, 
Niebuhr's History of Rome; and edited the Works of John Sterling, with a 
Memoir, in 1848. He was an ecclesiastical leader of what is called the "broad 
Church," as distinct from "high" or "low," and was highly respected as an 
earnest thinker on social and philosophic subjects. 

WHAT YOUTH SHOULD LEARN. 

The teachers of youth, in a free country, should select those 
books for their chief study — so far, I mean, as this world is con- 
cerned — which are best adapted to foster a spirit of manly freedom. 
The duty of preserving the liberty which our ancestors, through 
God's blessing, won, established, and handed down to us, is no 
less imperative than any commandment in the second table, if it 
be not the concentration of the whole. And is this duty to be 
learned from the investigations of science ? Is it to be picked up 
in the crucible? or extracted from the properties of lines and 
numbers ? I fear there is a moment of broken lights in the in- 
tellectual day of civilized countries, when, among the manifold 
refractions of Knowledge, Wisdom is almost lost sight of. 

PHYSICAL AND 3I0RAL POWER CONTRASTED. 

Let US cast our thoughts backward. Of all the works of all 
the men who were living eighteen hundred years ago, what is 

^ " Arclidearon Hare is a man of encyclo- I English theologians, at once accurate and wido 
pa^dir knowledge, a profound classical scholar, in his acquaintance with European history 
the most learned and philosophical of modern j and literature." — George Brimley's Essays. 



496 HARE. 

remaining now ? One man was then lord of half the known earth. 
In power none could vie with him ; in the wisdom of this world, 
few. He had sagacious ministers and able generals. Of all his 
works, of all theirs, of all the works of the other princes and 
rulers in those ages, what is left now ? Here and there a name, 
and here and there a ruin ! Of the works of those who wielded 
a mightier weapon than the sword, — a weapon that the rust cannot 
eat away so rapidly, a weapon drawn from the armory of thought, 
— some still live and act, and are cherished and revered by the 
learned. The range of their influence, however, is narrow : it is 
confined to few, and, even in them, mostly to a few of their medi- 
tative, not of their active, hours. But, at the same time, there 
issued from a nation among the most despised of the earth twelve 
poor men, with no sword in their hands, scantily supplied with 
the stores of human learning or thought. They went forth East, 
and West, and North, and South, into all quarters of the world. 
They were reviled ; they were spit upon ; they were trampled 
under foot ; every engine of torture, every mode of death, was 
employed to crush them. And where is their work now ? It is 
set as a diadem on the brows of the nations. Their voice sounds 
at this day in all parts of the earth. High and low hear it ; 
kings on their thrones bow down to it ; senates acknowledge it 
as their law ; the poor and afilicted rejoice in it ; and as it has 
triumphed over all those powers w^hich destroy the works of man, 
— as, instead of falling before them, it has gone on, age after age, 
increasing in power and in glory, — so is it the only voice which 
can triumph over Death, and turn the king of terrors into an 
angel of light. 

Therefore, even if princes and statesmen had no higher motive 
than the desire of producing works which are to last and to bear 
their names over the waves of time, they should aim at becoming 
the fellow-laborers, not of Tiberius and Sejanus, nor even of Au- 
gustus and Agrippa, but of Peter and Paul. Their object should 
be, not to build monuments which crumble away and are forgot- 
ten, but to work among the builders of that which is truly the 
Eternal City. For so, too, will it be eighteen hundred years 
hence, if the world lasts so long. Of the works of our generals 
and statesmen, eminent as several of them have been, all traces 
will- have vanished. Indeed, of him who was the mightiest among 
them, all traces have well-nigh vanished already. For they who 
deal in death are mostly given up soon to death, — they and their 
works. Of our poets and philosophers, some may still survive; 
and many a thoughtful youth in distant regions may still repair 
for wisdom to the fountains of Burke and Wordsworth. But the 
w^orks Avhich assuredly will live, and be great and glorious, are 
the works of those poor unregarded men who have gone forth in 
the spirit of the twelve from Judea, whether to India, to Africa, 



EARE. 497 

to Greenland, or to the isles in the Pacific. As their names are 
written in the Book of Life, so are their works : and it may be 
that the noblest memorial of England, in those days, will be the 
Christian empire of New Zealand. 

A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN. 

A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman : a gentleman, in the 
vulgar, superficial way of understanding the word, is the Devil's 
Christian. But to throw aside these polished and too current 
counterfeits for something valuable and sterling, the real gentle- 
man should be gentle in every thing, at least in every thing that 
depends on himself, — in carriage, temper, constructions, aims, 
desires. He ought, therefore, to be mild, calm, quiet, even, tem- 
perate, — not hasty in judgment, not exorbitant in ambition, not 
overbearing, not proud, not rapacious, not oppressive; for these 
things are contrary to gentleness. 

DESPISE NOT SMALL THINGS. 

"A pin a day is a groat a year. Take care of the pence, and 
the pounds will take care of themselves." Both these maxims, 
taken in their true spirit, are admirable prudential rules for the 
whole of our housekeeping through life. Nor is their usefulness 
limited to the purse. That still more valuable portion of our 
property, our time, stands equally in need of good husbandry. 
It is only by making much of our minutes that we can make 
much of our days and years. Every stitch that is let down may 
force us to unravel a score. 

Moreover, in the intercourse of social life, it is by little acts of 
watchful kindness, recurring daily and hourly, — and opportuni- 
ties of doing kindnesses, if sought for, are forever starting up, — 
it is by words, by tones, by gestures, by looks, that affection is 
won and preserved. He who neglects these trifles, yet boasts that 
whenever a great sacrifice is called for he shall be ready to make 
it, will rarely be loved. The likelihood is he will not make it; 
and if he does, it will be much rather for his own sake than for 
his neighbor's. Many persons, indeed, are said to be penny-wise 
and pound-foolish; but they who are penny-foolish will hardly 
be pound-wise, although selfish vanity may now and then, for a 
moment, get the better of selfish indolence: for Wisdom will 
always have a microscope in her hand. 

But these sayings are still more. They are, among the highest 
maxims of the highest prudence, that which superintends the 
housekeeping of our souls. The reason why people so ill know 
how to do their duty on great occasions is, that they will not be 
diligent in doing their duty on little occasions. Here, too, let us 
only take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of 

42* 



498 HARE. 

themselves: for God will be the paymaster. But how will He 
pay us? In kind, doubtless, by supplying us with greater occa- 
sions, and enabling us to act worthily of them. 

On the other hand, as there is a law of continuity, whereby in 
ascending we can only mount step by step, so is there a law of 
continuity whereby they who descend must sink, and that, too, 
with an ever-increasing velocity. No propagation or multiplica- 
tion is more rapid than that of evil, unless it be checked; no 
growth more certain. He who is in for a penny, to take another 
expression belonging to the same family, if he does not resolutely 
fly, will find he is in for a pound. 

"COMING OF AGE." 

Everybody is impatient for the time when he shall be his own 
master. And if coming of age were to make one so, if years 
could indeed " bring the philosophic mind," it would rightly be a 
day of rejoicing to a whole household and neighborhood. But 
too often he who is impatient to become his own master, when the 
outward checks are removed, merely becomes his own slave, — the 
slave of a master-in the insolent flush of youth, hasty, headstrong, 
wayward, and tyrannical. Had he really become his own master, 
the first act of his dominion over himself would have been to put 
himself under the dominion of a higher master and a wiser. 

MIRTH. 

Ridentem dicer e verum quid vetatP In the first place, all the 
sour faces in the world, stiffening into a yet more rigid asperity 
at the least glimpse of a smile. I have seen faces, too, which, so 
long as you let them lie in their sleepy torpor, unshaken and 
unstirred, have a creamy softness and smoothness, and might be- 
guile you into suspecting their owners of being gentle ; but, if 
they catch the sound of a laugh, it acts on them like thunder, 
and they also turn sour. Nay, strange as it may seem, there < 
have been such incarnate paradoxes as would rather see their 
fellow-creatures cry than smile. =!--***** 

Surely it cannot be requisite to a man's being in earnest that 
he should wear a perpetual frown. Or is there less of sincerity 
in Nature during her gambols in spring than during the stiffness 
and harshness of her wintry gloom? Does not the bird's blithe 
carolling come from the heart quite as much as the quadruped's 
monotonous cry? And is it then altogether impossible to take 
lip one's abode with Truth, and to let all sweet homely feelings 
grow about it and cluster around it, and to smile upon it as on a 

1 What forbids one to say what Js true In a laughiug manner? 



HARE. 499 

kind father or mother, and to sport with it, and hold light and 
merry talk with it, as with a loved brother or sister, and to fondle 
it and play with it as with a child ? No otherwise did Socrates 
and Plato commune with Truth ; no otherwise Cervantes and 
Shakspeare. •******^** 

It is true, an exclusive attention to the ridiculous side of things 
is hurtful to the character and destructive of earnestness and 
gravity. But no less mischievous is it to fix our attention exclu- 
sively, or even mainly, on the vices and other follies of mankind. 
Such contemplations, unless counteracted by wholesomer thoughts, 
harden or rot the heart, deaden the moral principle, and make us 
hopeless and reckless. The objects toward which we should turn 
our minds habitually are those which are great, and good, and 
pure ; the throne of virtue, and she who sits upon it ; the majesty 
of truth, the beauty of holiness. This is the spiritual sky through 
which we should strive to mount, " springing from crystal step to 
crystal step," and bathing our souls in its living, life-giving 
ether. These are the thoughts by which we should whet and 
polish our swords for the warfare against evil, that the vapors of 
the earth may not rust them. But in a warfare against evil, 
under one or other of its forms, we are all of \m called to engage ; 
and it is a childish dream to fancy that we can walk about among 
mankind without perpetual necessity of remarking that the world 
is full of many worse incongruities besides those which make us 
lauo'h. ^i^********* 

For the full expansion of the intellect, moreover, to preserve 
it from that narrowness and partial warp which our proneness to 
give ourselves up to the sway of the moment is apt to produce, 
its various faculties, however opposite, should grow and be trained 
up side by side, — should twine their arms together and strengthen 
each other by love-wrestles. * * * Our graver faculties and 
thoughts are much chastened and bettered by a blending and 
interfusion of the lighter, so that " the sable cloud" may " turn 
her silver lining on the night ;" while our lighter thoughts require 
the graver to substantiate them and keep them from evaporating. 
Thus Socrates is said, in Plato's Banquet, to have maintained that 
a great tragic poet ought likewise to be a great comic poet. This 
combination was realized in himself and in his great pupil, and 
may, perhaps, have been so to a certain extent in ^schylus, if 
we may judge from the fame of his satiric dramas. At all events 
the assertion, as has been remarked more than once, is a wonder- 
ful prophetical intuition, which has received its fulfilment in 
Shakspeare. No heart would have been strong enough to hold 
the woe of Lear and Othello, except that which had the unquench- 
able elasticity of Falstaft' and the " Midsummer Night's Dream." 
He, too, is an example that the perception of the ridiculous does 
not necessarily imply bitterness and scorn. Along with hia 



600 HARE. 

intense humor, and his equally intense piercing insight into the 
darkest, most fearful depths of human nature, there is still a 
spirit of universal kindness, as well as universal justice, pervading 
his works ; and Ben Jonson has left us a precious memorial of 
him, where he calls him "My gentle Shakspeare." • This one epi- 
thet sheds a beautiful light on his character : its truth is attested 
by his wisdom, which could never have been so i3erl'ect unless it 
had been harmonized by the gentleness of the dove. 

HOW WE MAY "INHERIT THE EARTH." 

The inheritance of the earth is promised to the godly. How 
inseparably is this promise bound up with the command to love 
our neighbors as ourselves ! For what is it to inherit land ? To 
possess it; to enjoy it; to have it as our own. Now, if we did 
love our fellow-men as ourselves, — if their interests, their joys, 
their good, were as dear to us as our own, — then would all their 
property be ours. We should have the same enjoyment from it 
as if it were called by our name. We can feel the truth of this 
in the case of a dear friend, of a brother ; still more in that of a 
husband and wife,, who, though two persons, are in every interest 
one. AVere this love extended to all, it would once more make all 
mankind one people and one family. To this end, the first Chris- 
tians sought to have all things in common : 7ieither said any of them 
that aught of the things which he possessed was his own. (Acts iv. 
32.) In proportion as we grow to think and feel that the concerns 
of others are no less important to us than our own, in proportion 
as we learn to share their pleasures and their sorrows, — to rejoice 
with them when they rejoice, and to suffer and mourn with them 
when they suffer and mourn, — in the selfsame measure do we 
taste the blessedness of the promise that we shall inherit the earth. 
It is not the narrow span of our own garden, of our own field, 
that we then enjoy. Our own prosperity does not bound our 
happiness. That happiness is infinitely multiplied as we take 
interest in all that befalls our neighbors, and find an ever-flowing 
source of fresh joy in every blessing bestowed on every soul 
around us. 

CL UD— SUNSHINE. 

We often live under a cloud ; and it is well for us that we 
should do so. Uninterrupted sunshine would parch our hearts : 
we want shade and rain to cool and refresh them. Only it be- 
hooves us to take care that, whatever cloud may be spread over 
us, it should be a cloud of witnesses. And every cloud may be 
such, if we can only look through to the sunshine that broods 
behind it. 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 501 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE, IS 16-1855. 

Charlotte Bronte, one of the most original novelists of her time, was born at 
Thornton, Yorkshire, April 21, 1816. Her father was a curate, of Irish descent, 
and in 1821 removed from Thornton to Haworth, in the same county. Soon 
after, the mother died, and Charlotte, when but eight years old, was sent with 
three of her sisters to Cowan's Bridge Boarding-School, the discomforts and 
tyranny of which she afterwards very graphically described in her novel of 
Jane Eyre. Two of the sisters soon died, and Charlotte returned to a home 
that had not many comforts; for her father was a man of eccentric and soli- 
tary habits, and withal very poor. But the sisters nobly determined to exert 
all their powers to make themselves and their solitary father more comfort- 
able. In 1842, Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels, to qualify themselves for 
teaching foreign languages. On their return they advertised that they would 
receive pupils in the parsonage; but none came. The three sisters, Charlotte, 
Emily, and Anne, then ventured to. publish a volume of their poems, their 
names being veiled under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. This choice 
of names was dictated, as Charlotte writes, by "a sort of conscientious scruple 
at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while they did not like 
to declare themselves women." But the volume had little success. Char- 
lotte's next venture was a prose tale, — The Profesfior, — which was rejected by 
the London publishers ; but the rejection was sweetened by the encouragement 
to try her hand at another book. The fruit of this advice was soon beheld in 
Jane Eyre (1847), — a work of startling interest and power, and which at once 
made the author famous. In 1849 she published Shirley, and in 1852 Villette, — 
the last work of this woman of true genius. In June, 1854, she was married to 
her father's curate, Mr. Nichol, but died in the following March, in her thirty- 
ninth year.i 

DEATH OF EMILY AND ANNE BRONTE. 

Never in all her life had Emily lingered over any task that 
lay before her, and she did not linger now. She sank rapidly. 
She made haste to leave us. Yet, while physically she perished, 
mentally she grew stronger than we had yet known her. Day by 
day, when I saw with what a front she met suffering, I looked on 
her with an anguish of wonder and love. I have seen nothing 
like it ; but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in any thing. 
Stronger than a man, simj^ler than a child, her nature stood 
alone. The awful point was, that while full of ruth for others, 
on herself she had no pity ; the spirit was inexorable to the flesh ; 
from the trembling hand, the unnerved limbs, the faded eyes, the 
same service was exacted as they had rendered in health. To 
stand by and witness this, and not dare to remonstrate, was a 
pain no words can render. Two cruel months of hope and fear 



1 Her sister Emily, the author of Wuthering Heights, had died in 1848 ; and Anne, -who wrote 
Agnes Grey, in 1849. 



502 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 

passed painfully by, and the day came at last when the terrors 
and pains of death were to be undergone by this treasure, which 
had grown dearer and dearer to our hearts as it wasted before 
our eyes. Towards the decline of that day we had nothing of Emily 
but her mortal remains as consumption left them. She died De- 
cember 19, 1848, in her thirtieth year. AVe thought this enough ; 
but we were utterly and presumptuously wrong. She was not 
buried ere Anne fell ill. She had not been committed to the 
graye a fortnight before we receiyed distinct intimation that it 
was necessary to prepare our minds to see the younger sister go 
after the elder. Accordingly, she followed in the same path 
with a slower step, and with a patience that equalled the other's 
fortitude. She was religious, and it was by leaning on those 
Christian doctrines in which she firmly belieyed, that* she found 
support through her most painful journey. I witnessed their 
efiicacy in her latest hour and greatest trial, and must bear my 
testimony to the calm triumph with which they brought her 
through. She died May 28, 1849, aged twenty-nine. 

HELEN BURXS.'^ 

I made my way to one of the fireplaces ; there, kneeling by 
the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted 
from all around her by the companionship of a book, which she 
read by the dim glare of the embers. 

" Is it still Easselas ?" I asked, coming behind her. 

" Yes," she said, " and I haye just finished it." 

And in fiye minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. 

" Now," thought I, " I can perhaps get her to talk." I sat 
down by her on the floor. 

" What is your name besides Burns ?" 

" Helen." 

*' Do you come a long way from here ?" 

" I come from a place further north ; quite on the borders of 
Scotland." 

" Will you eyer go back ?" 

" I hope so ; but nobody can be sure of the future." 

" You must wish to leave Lowood." 

" No ; why should I ? I was sent to Lowood to get an educa- 
tion ; and it would be of no use going away until I haye attained 
that object." 

"But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?" 

" Cruel ? Not at all ! She is seyere ; she dislikes my faults." 



1 The scene of this picture is in the boarding- ! and the paltry instruction — she paints in bar 
Bchool, called by her '" Lowood,'' the miseries of I novel, Jane Eyre, with great power, 
which^ — the scanty fare, the tyrannic discipline, 1 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 503 

"And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should 
resist her ; if she struck me with that rod, I should get it from 
her hand ! I should break it under her nose." 

*' Probably you would do nothing of the sort ; but if you did, 
Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the school ; that would 
be a grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently 
a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty 
action whose evil consequences Avill extend to all connected with 
you — and, besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil." 

" But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent 
to stand in the middle of a room full of people ; and you are 
such a great girl ; I am far younger than you, and I could not 
bear it." 

" Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid 
it : it is weak and silly to say you cannot hear what it is your fate 
to be required to bear." 

I heard her with wonder ; I could not comprehend this doc- 
trine of endurance ; and still less could I understand or sympa- 
thize with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still 
I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to 
my eyes. I suspected she might be right and I wrong ; but I 
w^ould not ponder the matter deej^ly ; like Felix, I put it off to "a 
more convenient season." 

" You say you have faults, Helen ; what are they ? To me you 
seem very good." 

" Then learn from me not to judge by appearances. I am, as 
Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly ; I seldom put, and never keep, 
things in order ; I am careless ; I forget rules ; I read when I 
should learn my lessons ; I have no method ; and sometimes I say, 
like }>ou, I cannot hear to be subjected to systematic arrange- 
ments. This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is 
naturally neat, punctual, and particular." 

" And cross and cruel," I added ; but Helen Burns would not 
admit my addition : she kept silence. 

" Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd ?" 

At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted 
over her grave face. 

" Miss Temple is full of goodness ; it pains her to be severe to 
any one, even the worst in the school ; she sees my errors, and 
tells me of them gently ; and, if I do any thing w^orthy of praise, 
she gives me my meed liberally. One strong proof of my 
wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so 
mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults ; 
and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimu- 
late me to continued care and foresight." 

" That is curious," said I ; "it is so easy to be careful." 

" For you I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class 



504 CHARLOTTE BROKTE. 

this morning, and saw you were closely attentive ; your thoughts 
never seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson 
and questioned you. Now, mine continually rove away ; when 
I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she 
says with assiduity, often I lose the very sound of her voice ; I 
fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think I am in Northum- 
berland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of 
a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our house ; 
then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be wakened ; 
and, having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the 
visionary brook, I have no answer ready." 

" Yet how well you replied this afternoon !" 

" It was mere chance ; the subject on which we had been read- 
ing had interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of 
Deepden, I was Avondering how a man Avho wished to do right 
could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes 
did ; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity 
and conscientiousness, he could see no farther than the preroga- 
tives of the crown. If he had but been able to look to a dis- 
tance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tend- 
ing! Still, I like Charles, — I respect hiin, I pity him, — poor 
murdered king ! Yes, his enemies were the worst ; they shed 
blood they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him ?" 

Helen was talking to herself now ; she had forgotten I could 
not very well understand her, — that I was ignorant, or nearly so, 
of the subject she discussed. I recalled her to my level. 

"And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander 
then?" 

" No, certainly, not often ; because Miss Temple has generally 
something to say which is newer than my own reflections ; her 
language to me is singularly agreeable, and the information she 
communicates is often just what I wished to gain." 

" AVell, then, with Miss Temple you are good ?" 

" Yes, in a passive way. I make no effort ; I follow as incli- 
nation guides me. There is no merit in such goodness." 

"A great deal ; you are good to those who are good to you. It 
is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obe- 
dient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would 
have it all their own way ; they would never feel afraid, and so 
they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When 
we are struck at without reason, we should strike back again very 
hard ; I am sure we should — ^so hard as to teach the person who 
struck us never to do it again." 

" You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older ; 
as yet you are but a little, untaught girl." 

" But I feel this, Helen ; I must dislike those who, whatever I 
do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those 



CHARL OTTE BR OXTK 505 

who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love 
those who show me afiection, or submit to punishment when I feel 
it is deserved." 

" Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians 
and civilized nations dir^own it." 

" How ? I don't understand." 

" It is not violence that best overcomes hate — nor vengeance 
that most certainly heals injury." 

" What then ?'' ' 

" Read the Xew Testament, and observe what Christ says, 
and how he acts ; make his word your rule, and his conduct your 
example." 

"What does he say?" 

" Love your enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do good to 
them that hate you and despitefully use you." 

" Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do. I should 
bless her son John, which is impossible." 

In her turn Helen Burns asked me to explain ; and I pro- 
ceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my 
sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, 
I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening. 

Helen heard me patiently to the end ; I expected she would 
then make a remark, but she said nothing. 

" Well," I asked, impatiently, " is not Mrs. Reed a hard- 
hearted, bad woman ?" 

" She has been unkind to you, no doubt ; because, you see, she 
dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine ; 
but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to 
you I What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to 
have made on your heart I Xo ill usage so brands its record on 
my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget 
her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? 
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or 
registering wrongs. We are and must be, one and all, burdened 
with faults in this world ; but the time will soon come when, I 
trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies ; 
when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous 
frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, — the 
impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the 
Creator to inspire the creature ; whence it came it will return ; 
perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than 
man, — perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the 
pale human soul to brighten to the seraph I Surely it will never, 
on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? 
Ko ; I cannot believe that • I hold another creed ; which no one 
ever taught me, and which I seldom mention ; but in which I 
delight, and to which I cling; for it extends hope to all; it 

^ 43 



506 ROGERS. 

makes eternity a rest, — a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. 
Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the 
criminal and his crime ; I can so sincerely forgive the first while 
I abhor the last ; wdth this creed, revenge never worries my heart, 
degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes 
me too low; I live in calm, looking to the end." 

Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little low^er as she i 
finished this sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer 
to talk to me, but rather converse W'ith her own thoughts. She 
was not allowed much time for meditation ; a monitor, a great 
rough girl, presently came up, exclaiming, in a strong Cumber- 
land accent, — 

" Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your draw^er in order, 
and fold up your work, this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to 
come and look at it !" 

Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and, g'etting up, obeyed the 
monitor without reply as without delay. 



SAMUEL ROGERS, 1763-1855. 

And thou, melodious Rogers, rise at last, 

Recall the pleasing ineiiiory of the past; 

Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire, 

And strike to wonted tones thy hallowd Ij're! 

Restore Apollo to his vacant throne, 

Assert thy country's honor and thine own. — Byron. 

Samuel Eogers was the son of an eminent banker in London, and was born 
in that city, July 30, 1763. He presents a rare instance of great wealth allied 
to great talents, untiring industry in literary pursuits, and pure morals. No 
expense, of course, was spared in his education, and after leaving the uni- 
versity he travelled through most of the countries of Europe. On his return 
he published, in 1786, an Ode to Superstition, with other Poems, which was well 
received. About six years after, when he had attained his thirtieth year, ap- 
peared The Pleasrures of Memory, which was received by the public with uni- 
versal favor, and at ouce established his fame as among the best of our modern 
poets. The subject was very happily chosen, for it came home "to the business 
and bosoms" of all, and it was executed jvith exceedingly great care. It has been 
said that no poem of equal size ever cost its author so many hours to produce. 
Not satisfied with correcting and re-correcting it again and again himself, he 
read it to various friends for the benefit of their criticism; and the result is, 
that it is perfectly finished throughout, each part harmonizing with the other, 
and every line carefully and tastefully elaborated. " It acquired," says a 
writer in the Edinburgh Review, ''a popularity originally very great, and 
which has not only continued amidst extraordinary fluctuation of general 
taste, but increased amidst a succession of formidable competitors. No pro- 
duction so popular was probably so little censured by criticism. It was ap- 
proved by the critics as much as read and applauded, and thus seemed to 



ROGERS. 



507 



combiue the applause of contemporaries with the suffrages of the representa- 
tives of posterity." 

In 1798, Eogers published his Epistle to a Friend, with other Poems, but did 
not come forward again as a poet till 1812, when he added to a collected edi- 
tion of his works his somewhat irregular poem of The Vision of Columbus. 
Two years after, in company with Lord Byron's Lara, appeared his tale of 
Jacqueline, which, though well received, contributed but little to his reputa- 
tion; and in 1819 he published his Human Life, which, next to his Pleasures 
of Memory, is our author's most finished production. ^ The subject was a good 
one; for it was drawn from universal nature, and connected with all those rich 
associations which increase in attraction as we journey onward in the path of 
life. It is an epitome of man from the cradle to the grave, and is executed 
throughout with the poet's wonted care. 

In 1822 was published his first part of Italy, which was soon after completed, 
and in a few years was published in a splendid style, illustrated by numerous 
engravings. This is his last and longest, but not his best, performance, though 
there are certainly many beautifully descriptive passages in it, — delightful 
glimpses of Italian life and scenery, and old traditions: for the poet was an 
accomplished traveller, a lover of the fair and good, and a worshipper of the 
classic glories of the past. But it is chiefly as the author of the Pleasures of 
Memory that he will be known to posterity, though, at the same time, some of 
his minor poems are among the most pure and exquisite fragments of verse 
which the poets of this age have produced. In all his works, however, there is 
everywhere seen a classic and graceful beauty; no slovenly or obscure lines; 
fine cabinet pictures of soft and mellow lustre : and occasional trains of thought 
and association that awaken. or recall tender and heroic feelings. His diction 
is clear and polished, — finished with great care and scrupulous nicety; but it 
must be admitted that he has no forcible or original invention, no deep pathos 
that thrills the soul, and no kindling energy that fires the imagination.^ 

Rogers's life was protracted to a very unusual period, — to the 18th of Decem- 
ber, 1855, when he was in his ninety-third year. Indeed, his longevity was 
one of the sources, if not the chief source, of the public interest felt for him in 
his later life, as during the last twenty or thirty years of it he produced very 
little. But in his character of a superannuated poet living on the reputation 
of his past performances, drawing the artists and wits and men of rank of a 
more modern age around him, and entertaining them with his caustic talk 
and his reminiscences of the notable persons and events of former days, he 



1 "The poet looks on man, and teaches us to 
look on him, not merely with love, but with 
reverence; and. mingling a sort of considerate 
pity for the shortness of his busy little career, 
and for the disappointments and weaknesses 
with which it is beset, with a genuine ad- 
miration of the great capacities he unfolds, 
and the high destiny to which he seems to be 
reserved, works out a very beautiful and en- 
gaging picture, both of the affections by 
which life is endeared, the trials to which it 
is exposed, and the i)ure and peaceful enjoy- 
ments with which it m;iy often be filled." — 
Edinhurgh Review, xxxi. 325. 

2 In a review of Rogers's Poems, in the 
Edinhiirph, October. 181.3. the writer (who is 
no less than Sir James Mackintosh) thus re- 
marks : — " Perhaps there is no volume in our 



language of which it can be so truly said, as 
of the present, that it is equally exempt from 
the frailties of negligence and the vices of 
affectation. The exquisite polish of style is 
indeed more admired by the artist than by 
the people. The gentle and elegant pleasure 
which it imparts can only be felt by a calm 
reason, an exercised taste, and a mind free 
from turbulent passions. But these beauties 
of execution can exist only in combination 
with much of the primary beauties of thought 
and feeling. These are permanent beauties. 
In poetry, though not in eloquence, it is less 
to rouse the passions of a moment than to 
satisfy the taste of all ages; and Rogers has 
most certainly taken his, place among the 
classical poets of his country." 



508 ROGERS. 

held a very conspicuous position in the best cii-cles of London society. Few 
were more agreeable in manners and conversation. From his great wealth he 
had been enabled to cultivate his favorite tastes, to enrich his house in St. 
James's Park with some of the finest and rarest pictui-es, busts, books, and 
gems, and to entertain his friends with a generous and unostentatious hospi- 
tality. His conversation was rich and various, abounding in wit, eloquence, 
shrewd observation, and interesting personal anecdote; for he had been fami- 
liar with almost every distinguished author, orator, and artist for the last fifty 
years of his life. 

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. 

Twilight's soft dews steal o'er the village green, 
With magic tints to harmonize the scene ; 
Still'd is the hum that through the hamlet broke, 
When round the ruins of their ancient oak 
The peasants flock'd to hear the minstrel play. 
And games and carols closed the busy day. 
Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more 
With treasured tales and legendary lore. 
All, all are fled ; nor mirth nor music flows 
To chase the dreams of iimocent repose. 
All, all are fled ! yet still I linger here ! 
What secret charms this silent spot endear ! 

Mark yon old mansion, frowning through the trees, 
W^hose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze. 
That casement, arch'd with ivy's brownest shade, 
f First to these eyes the light of heaven convey'd. 

The mouldering gateway strews tlie grass-grown court, 
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport. 
When nature pleased, for life itself was new, 
And the heart promised what the fancy drew. 
^ -x- -x- * * * 

Childhood's loved group revisits every scene. 
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green ! 
Indulgent Memory wakes, and, lo, they live ! 
Clothed with far softer hues than Light can give; 
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below 
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know ; 
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm. 
When nature fades and life forgets to charm ; 
Thee would the Muse invoke ! — to thee belong 
The sage's precept and the poet's song. 
Wliat soften' d views thy magic glass reveals, 
When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight steals ! 
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day, 
Long on the Avave reflected lustres play; 
Thy temper'd gleams of happiness resign'd 
Glance on the darken'd mirror of the mind. 
The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray, 
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay. 
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn, 
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn ; 
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air, 
When the slow dial gave a pause to care. 



ROGERS. 



509 



Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear, 
Some little friendship form'd and cherish'd here ; 
And not the lightest leaf but trembling teems 
With golden visions and romantic dreams ! 

Pleasures of Memory. 

HISTORIC ASSO CIA TIONS. 

Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire, 
As summer clouds flash foi'th electric lire. 
And hence this spot gives back tlie joys of youth, 
Warm as the life, and with the mirror's truth. 
Hence homefelt pleasure prompts the patriot's sigh ; 
This makes him wish to live and dare to die. 
For this young Foscari,^ whose hapless fate 
Venice should blush to hear the Muse relate, 
When exile wore his blooming years away, 
To sorrow's long soliloquies a prey, 
When reason, justice vainly urged his cause, 
For this he roused her sanguinary laws ; 
Glad to return, though hope could grant no more. 
And chains and torture hail'd him to the shore. 

And hence the charms historic scenes impart ; ' 
Hence Tiber awes and Avon melts the heart. 
Aerial forms in Tempe's classic vale 
Glance through the gloom and whisper in the gale ; 
In wild Vaucluse with love and Laura dwell, 
And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell. 
'Twas ever thus. As now at Virgil's tomb 
We bless the shade and bid the verdure bloom : 
So Tully paused, amid the wrecks of Time,^ 
On the rude sione to trace the truth sublime; 
W^lien at his feet, in honor'd dust disclosed. 
The immortal sage of Syracuse reposed. 
And as he long in sweet delusion hung, 
Where once a Plato taught, a Pindar sung, 
Who now but meets him musing when he roves 
His ruin'd Tusculum's romantic groves? 
In Eome's great forum, who but hears him roll 
His moral thunders o'er the subject soul ? 

And hence that calm delight the portrait gives: 
We gaze on every feature till it lives! 



1 He was suspected of murder, and, at Venice, 
suspicion is good evidence. Neitlier the in- 
terest of the Doge, liis father, nor the in- 
trepidity of conscious innocence, wliich he ex- 
hibited in the dungeon and on the rack, could 
procure his acquittal. He was banished to the 
island of Candia for life. But here his reso- 
lution failed him. At such a distance from 
borne he could not live ; and, as it was a crimi- 
nal offence to solicit the intercession of a foreign 
prince, in a fit of despair he addressed a letter 
to the Duke of Milan, and intrusted it to a 
wretch whose perfidy he knew would occasion 
his being remanded a i)risoner to Venice. 

* " Whatever withdraws us from the power 



of our senses, whatever makes the past, the 
distant, or the future predominate over the 
present, advances us in the dignity of thinking 
beings. Far from me and far from my friends 
be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us, 
indifferent and unmoved, over any ground 
which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, 
or virtue. That man is little to be envied 
whose patriotism would not gain force upon 
the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would 
not grow warmer among the ruins of lona." 

— JOHXSON. 

3 '-When Cicero was qufestor in Sicily, he 
discovered the tomb of Archimedes hy its 
mathematical inscription." — Txisc. Quasi, v. 3. 



43* 



610 



ROGERS. 



Still the fond lover sees the absent maid : 
And the lost friend still lingers in his shade ! 
Say why the pensive widow loves to weep, 
When on her knee she rocks her babe to sleep : 
Tremblingly still, she lifts his vail to trace 
The father's features in his infant face. 
The hoary grandsire smiles the hour away, 
Won by the' raptures of a game at play ; 
He bends to meet each artless burst of joy, 
Forgets his age, and acts again the boy. 

What though the iron school of War erase 
Each milder virtue and each softer grace ; 
What though the liend's torpedo-touch arrest 
Each gentler, finer impulse of the breast; 
Still shall this active principle preside. 
And wake the tear to Pity's self denied. 

The intrepid Swiss, who guards a foreign shore, 
Condemn'd to climb his mountain-clifis no more, 
If chance he hears the song so sweetly wild 
Which on those cliffs his infant hours beguiled. 
Melts at the long-lost scenes that round him rise, 
And sinks a martyr to repentant sighs. 

Ask not if courts or camps dissolve the charm : 
Say why Vespasian ^ loved his Sabine farm ? 
Why great Navarre,^ when France and Freedom bled, 
Sought the lone limits of a forest-shed ? 
When Diocletian's self-corrected mind^ 
The imperial fasces of a world resign'd. 
Say why we trace the labors of his spade, 
In calm Salona's philosophic shade? 
Say, when contentious Charles renounced a throne,* 
To muse with monks unletter'd and unknown, 
What from his soul the parting tribute drew? 
What claim'd the sorrows of a last adieu? 
The still retreats that soothed his tranquil breast 
Ere grandeur dazzled and its cares oppress' d. 

The same. 



1 Vespasian, according to Suetonius, con- 
stantly passed his summers in a smaU villa 
near Reate, where he was born, and to which 
he would never add any embellishment. 

2 "That amiable and accomplished monarch, 
Henry the Fourth of France, made an excur- 
sion from his camp, during the long siege of 
Laon, to dine at a house in the forest of Folam- 
bray, where he had often been regaled, when 
a boy, with fruit, milk, and new cheese, and 
in revisiting which he promised himself great 
pleasure." — Mem. de Sully. 

S " Diocletian retired into his native province, 
and there amused himself with building, plant- 
ing, and gardening. His answer to Maximian 
is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by 
that restless old man to reassume the reins of 



government and the imperial purple. He re- 
jected the temptation with a smile of pity, 
calmly obser\'ing, ' That if he could show Max- 
imian the cabbages which he had planted with 
his own hands at Salona, he should no longer 
be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happi- 
ness for the pursuit of power.' " — Gibbon. 

* " When the Emperor Charles V. had exe- 
cuted his memorable resolution, and had Bet 
out for the monastery of St. Justus, he stopped 
a few days at Ghent," says his historian, "to 
indulge that tender and pleasant melancholy 
which arises in the mind of every man, in the 
decline of life, on visiting the place of his 
nativity, and viewing the scenes and objects 
familiar to him in his early youth." — Robert- 
son. 



ROGERS. 611 



CONCL USION. 



Hail, Memory, hail ! in tJiy exliaustless mine 
From age to age unniimber'd treasures shine ! 
Thouglit and her shadowy brood thy call obey, 
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway f 
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone; 
The only pleasures we can call our own. 
Lighter than air Hope's summer visions die, 
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky ; 
If but a beam of sober Eeason play, 
Lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away ! 
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, 
Snatch the rich relics of a well-siDent hour? 
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, 
Pour round her path a stream of living light ; 
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, 
Where Virtue triumphs and her sons are blest 1 

HUMAN LIFE. 



The same. 



The lark has sung his carol in the sky, 
The bees have humm'd their noontide lullaby ; 
Still in the vale the village bells ring round. 
Still in Llewellyn hall the jests resound ; 
For now the caudle-cup is circling there. 
Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer, 
And, crowding, stop the cradle to admire 
The babe, the sleeping image of his sire. 
A few short years, and then these sounds shall hail 
The day again, and gladness fill the vale ; 
So soon the child a youth, the youth a man. 
Eager to run the race his fathers ran. 
Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin ; 
The ale, now brew'd, in floods of amber shine ; 
And basking in the chimney's ample blaze, 
'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days, 
The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled, 
" 'Twas on these knees he sat so oft and smiled." 

And soon again shall music swell the breeze; 
Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees 
Vestures of nuptial white ; and hymns be sung. 
And violets scatter'd round ; and old and young, 
In every cottage-porch, Avith garlands green. 
Stand still to gaze, and, gazing, bless the scene; 
While her dark eyes declining, by his side, 
Moves in her virgin vail the gentle bride. 

And once, alas ! nor in a distant hour, 
xVnother voice shall. come from yonder tower; 
When in dim chambers long black weeds are seen, 
And weepings heard where only joy has been; 
When, by his children borne, and from his door. 
Slowly departing to return no more, 
He rests in holy earth with them that went before. 



612 ROGERS. 

And such is hnman life ; so gliding on, 
It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone ! 
Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange, 
As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change, 
As any that the wandering tribes require, 
Stretch'd in the desert round their evening fire ; 
As any sung of old, in hall or bower. 
To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour ! 
* * * * -j^- * 

The hour arrives, the moment wisli'd and fear'd; 
The child is born, by many a pang endear'd. 
And now the mother's ear has caught his cry ; 
Oh, grant the cherub to her asking eye ! 
He comes, — she clasps him. To her bosom press'd, 
He drinks the balm of life and drops to rest. 

Her by her smile how soon the stranger knows ! 
How soon by his the glad discovery shows ! 
As to her lips she lifts the lovely boy. 
What answering looks of sympathy and joy ! 
He walks, — lie speaks. In many a broken word 
His wants, his wishes, and liis griefs are heard. 
And ever, ever to her lap he flies, 
When rosy Sleep comes on with sweet surprise. 
Lock'd in her arms, his arms across her flung, 
(That name most dear forever on liis tongue,) 
As with soft accents round her neck he clings, 
And, cheek to clieek, her lulling song she sings, 
How blest to feel the beatings of his heart. 
Breathe his sweet breath, and kiss for kiss impart; 
Watch o'er his slumbers like the brooding dove, 
And, if she can, exhaust a mother's love ! 

But soon a nobler task demands her care, 
Apart she joins his little hands in prayer. 
Telling of Him who sees in secret there : 
And now the volume on her knee has caught 
His wandering eye — now many a written thought 
Never to die, with many a lisping sweet, 
His moving, murmuring lips endeavor to repeat.^ 

Human Idfe. 

GINEVRA. 

She was an only child — her name Ginevra, — 
The joy, the pride of an indulgent father ; 
And in her fifteentb year became a bride, 
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria, 
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love. 

Just as she looks there in a bridal dress, 
Slie was all gentleness, all gayety. 
Her pranks the favorite theme of every tongue. 

1 "I Lave now lost my barrier between me 1 have been. If the way to heaven be thronj^h 
and death. God grant I may live to be as well piety, truth, justice, and charity, she is there." 
prepared for it as I confidently believe her to | — Swift, on the death of his mother. 



ROGERS, 513 

But now the day was come, the day, the hour ; 
Now frowning, smiling, for the Imndredth time, 
The nurse, that ancient lady, i)reached decorum ; 
And, in the lustre of her youth, she gave 
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco. 

Great was the joy ; but at the nuptial feast, 
When all sate down, the bride herself was wanting; 
Nor was she to be found ! Her father cried, 
" 'Tis but to make a trial of our love !" 
And till'd his glass to all ; but his hand shook, 
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread. 
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco, 
Laughing, and looking back, and flying still, 
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger. 
But now, alas ! she was not to be found ; 
Nor from that hour could any thing be guess'd, 
But that she was not ! 

Weary of his life, 
Francesco flew to Venice, and, embarking, 
Flung it away in battle with the Turks. 
Orsini lived ; and long might you have seen 
An old man wandering as in quest of something, — ■ 
Something he could not find, — he knew not what. 
When he was gone, the house remained awhile 
Silent and tenantless, then went to strangers. 

Full fifty years were past, and all forgotten, 
When on an idle day, a day of search 
'Mid the old lumber in the gallery, 
That moldering chest was noticed ; and 'twas said, 
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra, 
"Why not remove it from its lurking place?" 
'Twas done as soon as said ; but on the way 
It burst, it fell ; and lo ! a skeleton, 
With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone, 
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold. 
All else had perish'd — save a wedding-ring 
And a small seal, her mother's legacy, 
Engraven with a name, the name of both, 
'* Ginevra." 

There then had she found a grave ! 
Within that chest had she conceal'd herself, 
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy ; 
When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there, 
Fasten'd her down forever ! 



A WISH. 

Mine be a cot beside the hill ; 

A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear , 
A willowy brook that turns a mill, 

With many a fall, shall linger near. 



514 MILLER. 

The swallow oft beneath my thatch 
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest ; 

Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, 
And share my meal, a welcome guest. 

Around my ivied porch shall spring 

Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew ; 

And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing 
In russet gown and apron blue. 

The village church, among the trees. 

Where hrst our marriage vows were given, 

With merry peals shall swell the breeze, 
And point with taper spire to heaven. 



HUGH MILLER, 1802-1856. 

Hugh Miller, "the stone-mason of jCromarty,"i was born October 10, 1802. 
His only education, in the scholastic sense of the term, was received at the 
grammar-school in his native town ; and yet he is scarcely less remarkable as 
a master of picturesque English prose than as a practical geologist. On leaving 
school, at seventeen, he began to work as a stone-mason, and continued at this 
labor till his thirty-fourth year, devoting, however, all his leisure moments to 
researches in natural history, and to the enlargement of his literary know- 
ledge, — Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon being his favorite authors. Most of 
his companions in labor were of exceptionable habits, and it seems wonderful 
that he escaped falling into the same ; but let him tell his own story : — 

THE TURNING-POINT IN HIS LIFE. 

In laying down the foundation-stone of one of the larger houses 
built this year by Uncle David and his partner, the workmen 
had a royal " founding pint," and two whole glasses of the whiskey 
came to my share. A full-grown man would not have deemed a 
gill of usquebaugh^ an overdose, but it was considerably too 
much for me ; and when the party broke up, and I got home to 
my books, I found, as I opened the pages of a favorite author, 
the letters dancing before my eyes, and that I could no longer 
master the sense. I have the volume at present before me, — a 
small edition of the Essays of Bacon, a good deal worn at the 
corners by the friction of the pocket, — for of Bacon I never tired. 
The condition into which I had brought myself was, I felt, one 
of degradation. I had sunk, by my own act, for the time, to a 
lower level of intelligence than that on which it was my privilege 
to be placed; and though the state could have been no very 

1 A town in the north of Scotland. I other spirits, with raisins, cinnamon, and other 

2 A strong compound liquor of brandy and | spices. 



MILLER. 



515 



favorable one for forming a resolution, I in that hour determined 
that I should never again sacrifice my capacity of intellectual 
enjoyment to a drinking usage; and, with God's help, I was 
enabled to hold by the determination. * * * I see, in looking 
back on this my first year of labor, a dangerous point, at which, 
in the attempt to escape from the sense of depression and fatigue, 
the craving appetite of the coniirmed tippler might have been 
formed. 



He opened his brilliant literary career, in 1829, by publishing a volume of 
Poems, by a Stone-Mason, which was well received, and soon after Letters on 
the Herring Fishery, descriptive of a fisher's life at sea, which gave evidence 
of his nice observing faculties and of his pure English style. After about six- 
teen years spent with his haminer and chisel, he became, after his marriage, 
accountant in a Cromarty bank. In this position about six years were spent, 
during which his chief literary performance was Scenes and Legends in the 
North of Scotland, or the Traditional History of Cromarty. The Church of 
Scotland was at that time deeply agitated by the "Non-Intrusion principle," ^ 
and Mr. Miller's feelings being all on the side of the Non-Intrusionists, he 
wrote two powerful pamphlets on the subject, which attracted so much atten- 
tion that he was selected in 1840 to edit the Edinburgh Witness. Accordingly 
he removed to that city, and entered at once upon his duties as editor, which 
station he filled with signal ability to the day of his death. But, amid all 
the toils and distractions of journalism, he continvied to cultivate his darling 
studies. The Old Red Sandstone, 1841; First Impressions of England and its 
People, 1847; Foot-Prints of the Creator, 1850; a charming autobiography en- 
titled My Schools and Schoolmasters, 1854; and The Testimony of the Pocks, 1857; 
give evidence of his unceasing toil. Indeed, bis labors were altogether too 
much for him; his brain gave way, and in a moment of aberration he put 
an end to his own existence at Portobello, near Edinburgh, on the 24th of 
December, 1856. His last work named above he had completed for the press, 
but it was not published till the next year. Two other works — 7'he Cruise of 
the Betsey, a geological voyage to the Hebrides, and The Sketch-Book of Popular 
Geology — were edited by his widow after his death. "■^ 

There may be more scientific and learned geologists on the roll of English 
scholars than Hugh Miller, but no one has done so much to make the study 
of geology interesting and popular, and hardly any one has equalled him in 
the grace, purity, and varied splendor of his style. He presents, too, a noble 
example of what self-education can do for a man; and whether regarded as 
the fearless and independent writer, or the scientific and Christian scholar, 
showing how the works of God are in harmony with His Word,^ his character 
will ever claim the respect and reverence of posterity. 



1 That no person should, by the law or cus- 
tom of patronage, be thi'ust upon, or intruded 
into, a parish against the wishes of a majority 
of the parishioners. 

2 Fine editions of all his works have been 
published by Gould & Lincoln, Boston. 

3 In his dedication of The Testimony of the 
Rocks to James Miller, Professor of Surgery 
in the University of Edinburgh, he beautifully 



says, " While you have been condemned as a 
physiologist for asserting that the human 
framework, when fairly wrought during the 
week, is greatly the better for the rest of the 
Sabbath, I have been described by the same 
pen as one of the wretched class of persons 
who teach that geologj', rightly understood, 
does not conflict with Revelation." 



516 MILLER. 



PENTECOSTAL GIFT. 



I remember being mucb struck, several years ago, by a remark 
dropped in conversation by the late Rev. Mr. Stewart of Cro- 
marty, one of the most original-minded men I ever knew. " In 
reading in my Greek New^ Testament this morning," he said, " I 
was curiously impressed by a thought which, simple as it may 
seem, never occurred to me before. The portion W'hich I perused 
w^as in the First Epistle of Peter; and as I passed from the 
thinking of the passage to the language in which it is expressed, 
' This Greek of the untaught Galilean fisherman,' I said, * so 
admired by scholars and critics for its unaffected dignity and 
force, was not acquired, as that of Paul may have been, in the 
ordinary way, but formed a portion of the Pentecostal gift!' 
Here, then, immediately under my eye, on these pages, are there t 
embodied, not, as in many other parts of the Scriptures, the mere 
details of a miracle, but the direct results of a miracle. How 
strange! Had the old tables of stone been placed before me, 
with what an awe-struck feeling would I have looked on the 
characters traced upon them by God's own fingers ! How is it 
that I have failed to remember that, in the language of these 
Epistles, miraculously impressed by the Divine power upon the 
mind, I possessed as significant and suggestive a relic as that 
which the inscription miraculously impressed by the Divine power I 
upon the stone could possibly have furnished ?" 

TRACES OF THE OCEAN. 

Was it the sound of the distant surf that w^as in mine ears, or 
the low moan of the breeze, as it crept through the neighboring 
wood ? Oh, that hoarse voice of Ocean, never silent since time 
first began : — where has it not been uttered ? There is stillness 
amid the calm of the arid and rainless desert, where no spring 
rises and no streamlet flows, and the long caravan plies its weary 
march amid the blinding glare of the sand and the red unshaded 
rays of the fierce sun. But once and again, and yet again, has 
the roar of Ocean been there. It is his sands that the winds 
heap up ; and it is the skeleton remains of his vassals — shells, 
and fish, and the strong coral — that the rocks underneath enclose. 
There is silence on the tall mountain-peak, with its glittering 
mantle of snow, where the panting lungs labor to inhale the thin 
bleak air, where no insect murmurs and no bird flies, and where 
the eye wanders over multitudinous hill-tops that lie far beneath, 
and vast dark forests that sweep on to the distant horizon, and 
along long hollow valleys where the great rivers begin. And yet 
once and again, and yet again, has the roar of Ocean been there. 
The elegies of his more ancient denizens we find sculptured on 



MILLER. 517 

the crags, where they jut from beneath the ice into the mist- 
wreath ; and his later beaches, stage beyond stage, terrace the de- 
scending slopes. Where has the great destroyer not been, — the 
devourer of continents, the blue foaming dragon, whose vocation 
it is to eat up the land ? His ice-floes have alike furrowed the 
flat steppes of Siberia and the rocky flanks of Schehallion, and 
his nu^imulites and fish lie embedded in great stones of the pyra- 
mids hewn in the times of the old Pharaohs, and in rocky folds 
of Lebanon still untouched by the tool. So long as Ocean exists, 
there must be disintegration, dilapidation, change ; and should 
the time ever arrive when the elevatory agencies, motionless and 
chill, shall sleep within their profound depths to awaken no more, — 
and should the sea still continue to impel its currents and to roll its 
waves, — every continent and island would at length disappear, 
and again, as of old, " when the fountains of the great deep were 
broken up," 

"A shoreless ocean tumble round the globe." 

Was it with reference to this principle, so recently recognized, 
that we are so expressly told in the Apocalypse respecting the 
renovated earth, in which the state of things shall be fixed and 
eternal, that "there shall be no more sea"? or are we to regard 
the revelation as the mere hieroglyphic — the pictured shape — of 
some analogous moral truth ? " Reasoning from what we know," 
— and what else remains to us? — an earth without a sea would be 
an earth without rain, without vegetation, without life, — a dead 
and doleful planet of waste places, such as the telescope reveals 
to us in the moon. And yet the ocean does seem peculiarly a 
creature of time, — of all the great agents of vicissitude and 
change, the most influential and untiring ; and to a state in which 
there shall be no vicissitude and no change — in which the earth- 
quake shall not heave from beneath, nor the mountains wear 
down and the continents melt away — it seems inevitably neces- 
sary that there should be " no more sea." 

THE TRUE HAPPINESS OF WORKING-MEN. 

My advice to young working-men desirous of bettering their 
circumstances, and adding to the amount of their enjoyment, is 
a very simple one. Do not seek happiness in what is misnamed 
pleasure; seek it rather in what is termed study. Keep your 
consciences clear, your curiosity fresh, and embrace every oppor- 
tunity of cultivating your minds. You will gain nothing by 
attending Chartist meetings. The fellows who speak nonsense 
with fluency at these assemblies, and deem their nonsense elo- 
quence, are totally unable to help either you or themselves ; or, 
if they do succeed in helping themselves, it will be all at your 
expense. Leave them to harangue unheeded, and set yourselves 

44 



518 MILLER. 

to occupy your leisure hours in making yourselves wiser men. 
Learn to make a right use of your eyes ; the commonest things 
are worth looking at, — even stones and weeds, and the most fami- 
liar animals. Kead good books, not forgetting the best of all ; 
there is more true philosophy in the Bible than in every work of 
every sceptic that ever wrote; and we would be all miserable 
creatures without it, and none more miserable than you. You 
are jealous of the upper classes ; and perhaps it is too true that, 
with some good, you have received much evil at their hands. It 
must be confessed they have hitherto been doing comparatively 
little for you, and a great deal for themselves. But upper and 
lower classes there must be, so long as the world lasts ; and there 
is only one way in which your jealousy of them can be well 
directed. Do not let them get ahead of you in intelligence. It 
would be alike unwise and unjust to attempt casting them down 
to your own level, and no class would suffer more in the attempt 
than yourselves, for you would only be clearing the way, at an 
immense expense of blood, and under a tremendous pressure of 
misery, for another and perhaps worse aristocracy, with some 
second Cromwell or Napoleon at their head. Society, however, 
is in a state of continual flux ; some in the upper classes are from 
time to time going down, and some of you from time to time 
mounting up to take their places, — always the more steady and 
intelligent among you, remember ; and if all your minds were 
cultivated, not merely intellectually, but morally also, you would 
find yourselves, as a body, in the possession of a power which 
every charter in the world could not confer upon you, and which 
all the tyranny or injustice of the world could not withstand. 

THE LAST DAY OF CREATION. 

Again the night descends, for the fifth day has closed ; and 
morning breaks on the sixth and last day of creation. Cattle 
and beasts of the fields graze on the plains ; the thick-skinned 
rhinoceros wallows in the marshes ; the squat hippopotamus rustles 
among the reeds, or plunges sullenly into the river ; great herds 
of elephants seek their food amid the young herbage of the 
woods ; while animals of fiercer nature — the lion, the leopard, 
and the bear — harbor in deep caves till the "evening, or lie in 
wait for their prey amid tangled thickets, or beneath some broken 
bank. At length, as the day wanes and the shadows lengthen, 
man, the responsible lord of creation, formed in God's own 
image, is introduced upon the scene, and the work of creation 
ceases forever upon the earth. The night falls once more upon the 
prospect, and there dawns yet another morrow, — the morrow of 
God's rest, — that Divine Sabbath in which there is no more cre- 
ative labor, and which, " blessed and sanctified" beyond all the 



DICK. 519 

days that had gone before, has as its special object the moral 
elevation and final redemi^tion of man. And over it no evening 
is represented in the record as falling, for its special work is not 
yet complete. Such seems to have been the sublime panorama 
of creation exhibited in vision of old to 

" The shepherd who first taught the chosen seed, 
In the beginning how the heavens and earth 
Rose out of chaos ;" 

and, rightly understood, I know not a single scientific truth that 
militates against even the minutest or least prominent of its 
details. 



THOMAS DICK, 1774--1857. 

Few authors of the nineteenth century have a higher claim upon the respect 
and gratitude of the world than the venerable Christian philosopher, Dr. 
Thomas Dick. He was born near Dundee, on the 24th of November, 1774. 
His father, a linen manufacturer, was distinguished no less for his intelligence 
than for his eminent Christian character; and his mother, a woman of exem- 
plary piety, taught him to read the New Testament before he entered any 
school : thus he had the early advantages of the best of all schools, — a truly 
Christian home. 

A simple incident early directed the studies of Dr. Dick to astronomy. When 
only nine years old, while walking in his father's garden in the evening, his 
attention was directed by a maid-servant to the north, which was quite sud- 
denly illuminated by the Aurora Borealis. He was struck with amazement as 
well as terror; aud so powerful was the impression made upon his mind that 
he was early led to make eager inquiries for such books as would reveal to him 
some of the mysteries of astronomy and meteorology; and he actually con- 
structed a rude telescope himself, by which he could see the rings of Saturn. 
His father, seeing the strong bent of his son's mind, had good sense enough not 
to keep him any longer in his factory, and at the age of sixteen he began to 
study Latin, with the view of entering the university. 

In 1794 he became a student of the University of Edinburgh, and in the 
spring of 1795 was nominated teacher to the Orphans' Hospital in that city. 
Here he continued two years, and then left to pursue his academical studies. 
In 1801, having gone through the regular course of study as a student of 
divinity in the Secession Church, he obtained his license and began to preach, 
and for several years officiated in different parts of Scotland. On being in- 
vited to superintend a school connected with the Secession Church at Methven, 
he accepted the call. Here he instituted classes for the teaching of the sciences 
to the people, and projected the plan of those libraries for the working classes 
which are now so common in England. After ten years of gratifying and suc- 
cessful labor at Methven, he removed to an educational establishment at Perth, 
and during ten more years he taught, studied, and wrote, and finally built his 



620 



DICK. 



little cottage on the liigh grounda of Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, where ho 
retired "to hold communion with the stars,"i and where he died on the 29th 
of July, 1857, in the eighty-third year of his age. 

Dr. Dick has been peculiarly styled the "Christian Philosopher," from his 
efforts to demonstrate the compatibility and harmony of all true philosophy 
with the Christian plan of redemption and the truth of the life to come, and 
from the success with which he has explained the philosophy of religion. 
The inquiries of this patient and laborious philosopher, extending over the 
whole fields of physical and moral science, have been so varied and so sub- 
servient to the cause of sound morality and religion, that he acquired during 
his life a celebrity deservedly extensive, and won for himself a high place in 
the estimation of all good men.^ 



THE TENDENCY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Knowledge has a tendency to unite the hearts of all who are 
engaged in its pursuit: it forms a bond of union among its 
votaries more firm and permanent than that which unites princes 
and statesmen, — especially if it is conjoined with Christian prin- 
ciples and virtuous dispositions. Congeniality of sentiments and 
similarity of pursuits gradually weaken the force of vulgar pre- 
judices, and tend to demolish those barriers which the jealousies 
of nations have thrown around each other. True philosophers, 
whether English, Swedish, Kussian, Swiss, German, or Italian, 
maintain an intimate and affectionate correspondence with each 
other on every subject of literature and science, notwithstanding 
the antipathies of their respective nations. It is a well-known 
fact that, during the late war, when political animosities ran so 
high, the National Institute of France announced prizes for the 
discussion of scientific questions, and invited the learned in other 
nations, not even excepting the English, to engage in the com- 
petition ; and one of our countrymen — Sir Humphry Davy — 
actually obtained one of the most valuable and distinguished of 
these honorary awards. 

When knowledge is conjoined with a recognition of the Chris- 
tian precept, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," its pos- 



1 In 1837 Dr. Dick visited London, where he 
published his Celestial Scenery. About the 
same time he visited Paris, and embraced the 
opportunity of visiting the observatory there. 
Shortly after this the degree of LL.D. was con- 
ferred upon him by the Faculty and Trustees 
of Union College, Schenectady, New York. 

2 The following is, I believe, a correct list 
of Dr. Dick's works in the order of publica- 
tion: — 1. The Christian Philosopher, or the 
Connection of Science with Religion, 1823; 2. 
The Philosophy of Religion, or an Illustration 
of the Moral Laws of the Universe, 1825; 3. The 
Philosophy of a Future State, 1828 ; 4. The Im- 
provement of Society by the Diffusion of Know- 
ledge, 1833 ; 5. On the Mental Illumination and 



3foral Improvement of Mankind,1835 ; 6. Chris- 
tian Beneficence contrasted with Covetousness, 
1S36 ; 7. Celestial Scenery, 1838 ; 8. The Sidereal 
Heavens, 1840; 9. The Practical Astronomer, 
1845; 10. The Solar System, 1846; 11. The 
Atmosphere and Atmospherical Phenomena, 
1848; 12. The Telescope and Microscope, 1851. 
(The three last have been published by the 
London Religious Tract Society.) Besides 
these. Dr. Dick has M'ritten a great deal for 
various periodicals. — on Education, on the 
Attributes of the Deity, on the Influence of 
Periodical Puhlications, on Literary and Phi- 
losophical Associations, &c. &c. Several of his 
volumes have been translated into other lan- 
guages, and the Solar System into the Chinese. 



DICK. 521 

sessor will easily be made to enter into such considerations as the 
following, and to feel their force : — That all men, to whatever 
nation or tribe they belong, are the children of one Almighty 
Parent, endowed with the same corporeal organs, the same intel- 
lectual powers, and the same lineaments of the Divine image, — 
that they are subject to the same animal and intellectual wants, 
exposed to the same accidents and calamities, and susceptible of 
the same pleasures and enjoyments, — that they have the same 
capacities for attaining to higher degrees of knowledge and feli- 
city, and enjoy the same hopes and prospects of a blessed immor- 
tality, — that God distributes among them all thousands of bene- 
fits, embellishing their habitations with the same rural beauties, 
causing the same sun to enlighten them, the same vital air to 
make their lungs play, and the same rain and dews to irrigate 
their ground and ripen their fields to harvest, — that they are all 
capable of performing noble achievements, heroic exploits, vast 
enterprises ; of displaying illustrious virtues, and of making im- 
portant discoveries and improvements, — that they are all con- 
nected together by numerous ties and relations, preparing for 
each other the bounties of nature and the productions of art, and 
conveying them by sea and land from one country to another ; 
one nation furnishing tea, another sugar, another wine, another 
silk, another cotton, and another distributing its manufactures 
in both hemispheres of the globe, — in short, that they are all under 
the moral government of the same omnipotent Being, who " hath 
made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of all 
the earth, who hath determined the boundaries of their habita- 
tions," who carries them yearly around the centre of light and 
heat, and who " gives them rain from heaven, and fruitful sea- 
sons, filling their hearts with food and gladness." How various, 
then, the ties, how sacred and indissoluble the bonds, which 
should unite men of all nations ! Every man, whether he be a 
Jew or a Greek, a barbarian or a Scythian, a Turk or a French- 
man, a German or a Swede, a Hottentot or an Indian, an English- 
man or a Chinese, is to be considered as our kinsman and our 
brother, and, as such, ought to be embraced with benevolence 
and affection. In whatever region of the globe he resides, what- 
ever customs or manners he adopts, and to whatever religious 
system he adheres, he is a member of the same family to which 
we all belong. And shall we feel indifferent to our brethren, 
shall we indulge resentment and hostility towards them, because 
they are separated from us by a river, by a channel, by an arm 
of the sea, by a range of mountains, or by an arbitrary lin^ 
drawn by the jealousy of despots, or because their government 
and policy are different from ours ? Ought we not, on the con- 
trary, to take a cordial interest in every thing that concerns 
them, — to rejoice in their prosperity, to feel compassion on ac- 

44* 



522 DICK. 

count of the ravages, desolation, and misery which error and 
folly, vice and tyranny, may have produced among them, and to 
alleviate, to the utmost of our power, the misfortunes and op- 
pressions under which they groan? Eeason, as well as Chris- 
tianity, spurns at the narrow-minded patriotism which confines 
its regards to a particular country, and would promote its in- 
terests by any means, although it should prove injurious to every 
other nation. Whatever tends to the general good of the whole 
human family will ultimately be found conducive to the pros- 
perity and happiness of every particular nation and tribe ; while, 
on the other hand, a selfish and ungenerous conduct towards 
other communities, and an attempt to injure or degrade them, 
will seldom fail to deprive us of the benefits we wished to secure, 
and to expose us to the evils we intended to avert. Such appear, 
in fact, to be the principles of God's moral government among 
the nations, and such the sanctions by which the laws of natural 
justice are enforced. 



ON THE BENEFITS WHICH WOULD FLOW TO THE WORLD, WERE 
COVETOUSNESS UNDERMINED, AND AN OPPOSITE PRINCIPLE 
PREVAILING IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 

Were the covetous principle completely undermined, and, 
consequently, were wealth applied to its legitimate objects, ac- 
cording to the intention of the Creator, every thing requisite to 
promote the physical comfort and the moral and intellectual 
enjoyment of man in this world, and his preparation for a future 
state of happiness, might, at no distant period, be speedily 
eflfected. Even the physical aspect of the globe might be reno- 
vated, and its barren deserts transformed into a scene of fertility 
and beauty, so that " the wilderness and the solitary place" might 
be made "to rejoice and blossom as the rose." Although the 
inordinate love of money is " the root of all evil,'' yet the proper 
distribution of it, on the foundation of Christian principles, may 
be pronounced to be the source of all good. 

We have already shown that the almost universal prevalence 
of covetousness has been the cause of most of the wars and de- 
vastations which have convulsed the world, and the source of 
most of the evils and suflTerings under which the human race 
have groaned in every age. And it might likewise be demon- 
strated that the proper application of wealth would go far to 
undermine, and ultimately to destroy, all such evils, and to diffuse 
among all ranks a degree of happiness and comfort which has 
never yet been enjoyed in any period since man first violated the 
law of his Creator. It is scarcely conceivable, at first view, what 
innumerable benefits, of every description, might be conferred on 
our fellow-men, and on the world at large, by an application, on 



DICK. 623 

liberal and Christian principles, of the riches which we at this 
moment possess. 

Oh, into what a blissful scene might this ruin of a world yet 
be transformed, were covetousness thoroughly subdued, and were 
only those who profess to be Christians to come forth with 
unanimity, and lay down their superfluous treasures at the foot 
of the cross ! In the short space of little more than half a cen- 
tury to come, we might behold celestial light diffusing its radiance 
over the most distant and benighted regions of the globe ; the 
idols of the nations abolished ; the savage raised to the dignity 
of his moral and intellectual nature, and his mind adorned with 
the beauties of holiness ; the instruments of warfare broken to 
shivers, and peace shedding its benign influence over the world ; 
temples erected in every land for the worship of the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; the minds of the young irra- 
diated with Divine knowledge, and rising up in wisdom, and in 
favor with God and man ; the principle of crime extirpated, and 
poverty and wretchedness banished from the earth ; the moral 
wilderness of the heathen world cultivated and adorned with 
every heavenly virtue and grace ; the wastes and wilds of the 
globe transformed into fertile regions, and arrayed in all the 
beauties of Eden ; the hatred and jealousy of nations changed 
into benevolence, and a friendly and harmonious intercourse 
established between all the tribes and families of the earth ! 



THE THRONE OF GOD. 

The Scriptures frequently refer to a particular place, circum- 
stance, or manifestation, termed the throne of God, as in the 
following passages : — " Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my 
footstool." " The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens.'^ 
" A glorious high throne, from the beginning, is the jDlace of thy 
sanctuary." " Therefore are they before the throne of God, and 
serve him day and night in his temple." " Blessing, and honor, 
and glory, and power, be unto Him that sits upon the throne." 
These and similar expressions and representations must be con- 
sidered either as merely metaphorical, or as referring to some 
])articular region of the universe where the Divine glory is re- 
flected, in some peculiarly magnificent manner, from material 
objects, and where the manifestations of the Divine character are 
most illustriously displayed. If there be a reference to the 
splendor and magnitude of a particular portion of creation, there 
is an astronomical idea which may help us to form some concep- 
tion of this " glorious high throne" which is the peculiar resi- 
dence of the Eternal. It is now considered by astronomers as 
highly probable, if not certain, from late observations, from the 
nature of gravitation, and other circumstances, that all the 



624 



JERROLD. 



systems of the universe revolve round one common centre ; and 
that this centre may bear as great a proportion, in point of 
magnitude, to the universal assemblage of systems, as the sun 
does to his surrounding planets ; and since our sun is five hun- 
dred times larger than the earth and all the other planets and 
their satellites taken together, on the same scale such a central 
body would be five hundred times larger than all the systems and 
worlds in the universe. Here, then, may be a vast universe of 
itself, an example of material creation exceeding all the rest in 
magnitude and splendor, and in which are blended the glories of 
every other system. If this is in reality the case, it may, with 
the most emphatic propriety, be termed the throne of God} 



DOUGLAS JERROLD, 1803-1857. 

Douglas Jerrold, dramatist, journalist, and miscellaneous writer, was born 
in London, January 3, 1803. His father was manager of Sheerness Theatre," 
and hence his early taste for the drama. But the grand realities of naval war- 
fare by which he was surrounded made the stronger impression upon the boy, 
and he sought and obtained a midshipman's appointment in the service. 
When the war with Napoleon was over, he was apprenticed to a printer; and 
here his literary tastes were developed. After his hours of labor he devoted 
himself to books, the chief of which was Shakspeare, and made himself master 
of several languages. His first dramatic production was Black-eyed Susan,-— 
one of the most popular dramas of modern times. At a later period he pro- 
duced several five-act comedies, the best-known of which are Time works Won- 
ders, and The Bubbles of a Day? But his fame rests more securely upon his 
novels, sketches, and essays. His Men of Character was originally published 
in Blackwood. In 1841 he joined the staff of Punch, and contributed to that 
periodical A Story of a Feather, Punch's Letters to his Son, and The Caudle Lec- 
tures, of world-wide fame. Later appeared The Chronicles of Clovernook, — the 
kindliest and most delightful of all his books,— and Sai7it Giles and Saint James, 
— his most elaborate novel. For three or four years before his death he edited 
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper,— a journal of the largest circulation in England. 
He died, of disease of the heart, in 1857. His works have been published by 
his son, William Blanchard Jerrold, entitled Life and Remains of Douglas Jer- 
rold, and Douglas Jerrold's Wit and Humor.^ 



1 The earth, and all the other bodies in the 
solar system, are moving towards the con- 
stellation Hercules. 

2 Sheerness is a seaport at the mouth of the 
Thames, where there is a large naval arsenal, 
and a dock where men-of-war are repaired and 
refitted. 

3 other of his comedies are — Nell Gwynne, 
The Prisoner of War, The Housekeeper, Rent- 
Day, &c. 



* " No one that has seen Douglas Jerrold can 
ever forget him, — a tiny, round-shouldered 
man, with a pale, aquiline visage, keen, bright 
gray eyes, and a profusion of iron-brown hair; 
usually rather taciturn (though with a never- 
ceasing play of eye and lips), till an oppor- 
tunity occurred for shooting forth one of 
those flashes of wit which made him the con- 
versational chief of his day."— CHAWBJiRb'a 
Book of Days. 



JEER OLD. 525 

If Douglas Jerrold was not a great man, as the term is generally understood, 
he was certainly a very brilliant one. But the wit and drollery of his writings, 
however great, would not, perhaps, have made him the remarkable power he 
was, if he had not also possessed such a wonderful talent of colloquial repartee. 
In his day, and, perhaps, at no time, was any one in London half so noted for 
the brilliancy and originality of his sayings. Generally, his wit derived 
its value from the sense lying under it. Always sharp, often caustic, it was 
never morose or ill-natured; for Jerrold was in reality a kind-hearted man, 
full of feeling and tenderness ; and of true goodness and worth, talent and 
accomplishment, he was ever the hearty admirer. 

Every one knows that specimens of conversational wit, when divorced from 
the circumstances which produced them, are placed at a great disadvantage. 
Yet many of his sayings will bear repetition in print ; and we give the fol- 
lowing as some of his 



REPARTEES AND PUNS. 

Dogmatism. His definition of dogmatism was " puppyism come 
to maturity." 

A Fulsome Epitaph. On passing a flamingly uxorious epitaph 
put up by a famous cook on his wife's tomb in Kensal Green 
Cemetery, he shook his head, and said, " Mock turtle." 

Surplus Population. A puffy clergyman was expressing opi- 
nions that were very revolting to Jerrold, — to the effect that the 
real evil of modern times was the surplus population. " Yes, the 
surplice population," was his reply. 

Unremitting Kindness. " Call that a kind man !" said an 
actor, speaking of an absent acquaintance, — " a man who is 
always away from his family and never sends them a farthing ! 
Call that kindness !" " Yes," was his quick retort, — " unremit- 
ting kindness." 

Going on. As he was one day passing up Regent Street at his 
usual quick pace, he was met by a prosy old acquaintance, who 
stopped him, and began, " Well, Jerrold, my dear boy, what is 
going on ?" " I am," said the wit, instantly shooting off. 

A Donation. Once he was importuned to aid a literary ac- 
quaintance who had solicited aid from his friends two or three 

times before. " Well, how much does want this time ?" 

said Jerrold to the person who had undertaken to collect the 
money. " Why, just a four and two noughts (£400) will, I 
think, put him straight," was the reply. Jerrold: "Well, put 
me down for one of the noughts." 

The Sharp Attorney. A friend of an unfortunate lawyer met 

Jerrold, and said, "Have you heard about poor R ? His 

business is going to the devil." Jerrold: " That's all right : then 
he is sure to get it back again." 

Egotism. A supper of sheep's-head was proposed in the club, 
and presently served. One gentleman present, particularly en- 



526 JEER OLD. 

thusiastic on the excellence of the dish, threw down his knife and 
fork, exclaiming, "Well, sheep's-head forever, say I!" Jerrold: 
" There's egotism !" 

The Retort Direct. A somewhat prosy member of " Our Club," 
hearing an air mentioned, exclaimed, " That always carries me 
away when I hear it!" "Can nobody whistle it?" exclaimed 
Jerrold. 

MRS. CAUDLE'S CURTAIN LECTURES. 
INTRODUCTION, 

Poor Job Caudle was one of the few men w^hom nature, in her 
casual bounty to women, sends into the world as patient listeners. 
He was, perhaps, in more respects than one, all ears. And these 
ears Mrs. Caudle — his lawful wedded wife, as she would ever and 
anon impress upon him, for she was not a woman to wear chains 
without shaking them — took whole and sole possession of. They 
were her entire property ; as expressly made to convey to Caudle's 
brain the stream of wisdom that continually flowed from the lips 
of his wife, as was the tin funnel through which Mrs. Caudle in 
vintage time bottled her elder wine. There was, however, this 
difference between the wisdom and the Avine. The wine was 
always sugared ; the wisdom, never. It was expressed crude 
from the heart of Mrs. Caudle, who, doubtless, trusted to the 
sweetness of her husband's disposition to make it agree with 
him. * * * 

Mr. Caudle was blessed with an indomitable constitution. One 
fact will prove the truth of this. He lived thirty years with 
Mrs. Caudle, surviving her. Yes, it took thirty years for Mrs. 
Caudle to lecture and dilate upon the joys, griefs, duties, and 
vicissitudes comprised within that seemingly small circle, — the 
wedding-ring. * =!« * 

When Mr. Job Caudle was left in this briery world without his 
daily guide and nocturnal monitress, he was in the ripe fulness 
of fifty-two. For three hours at least after he went to bed — such 
slaves are we to habit — he could not close an eye. His wife still 
talked at his side. True it was, she was dead and decently 
interred. His mind — it was a comfort to know it — could not 
wander on this point : this he knew. Nevertheless, his wife was 
with him. The Ghost of her Tongue still talked as in the life ; 
and again and again did Job CauJle hear the monitions of by- 
gone years. At times, so loud, so lively, so real were the sounds, 
that Job, with a cold chill, doubted if he were really widowed. 
And then, with the movement of an arm, a foot, he would assure 
himself that he was alone in his holland. Nevertheless, the talk 
continued. It was terrible to be thus haunted by a voice; to 
have advice, commands, remonstrances, all sorts of saws and 



JERROLD. 527 

adage?, still poured upon him, and no visible wife. Now did the 
voice speak from the curtains; now from the tester; and now 
did it whisper to Job from the very pillow that he pressed. " It's 
a dreadful thing that her tongue should walk in this manner," 
said Job ; and then he thought confusedly of exorcism, or at 
least of counsel from the parish priest. 

Whether Job followed his ow'n brain, or the wise direction of 
another, we know not. But he resolved every night to commit 
to paper one curtain lecture of his late wife. The employment 
would, possibly, lay the ghost that haunted him. It was her dear 
tongue that cried for justice, and, when thus satisfied, it might 
possibly rest in quiet. And so it happened. Job faithfully 
chronicled all his late wife's lectures ; the ghost of her tongue 
was thenceforth silent, and Job slept all his after-nights in peace. 

When Job died, a small packet of papers was found inscribed 
as follows : — 

*' Curtain Lectures delivered in the course of Thirty Years, by Mrs. Margaret 
Caudle, and suffered by Job, her Ilusband.^' 

LECTURE FIRST. 
Mr. Caudle having lent Five Pounds to a Friend, 

You ought to be very rich, Mr. Caudle. I wonder who'd lend 
you five pounds ! But so it is : a wife may work and may slave. 
Oh, dear ! the many things that might have been done with five 
pounds ! As if people picked up money in the streets ! But you 
ahvays were a fool, Mr. Caudle ! I've wanted a black satin gown 
these three years, and that five pounds would have pretty well 
bought it. But it's no matter how I go, — not at all. Everybody 
says I don't dress as becomes your wife, — and I don't ; but what's 
that to you, Mr. Caudle ? Nothing. Oh, no ! you can have fine 
feelings for everybody but those that belong to you. I wish 
people knew you as I do, — that's all. You like to be called 
liberal, — and your poor family pays for it. 

All the girls want bonnets, and when they're to get 'em I 
can't tell. Half five pounds would have bought 'em, — but now 
they must go without. Of course, they belong to you ; and any- 
body but your own flesh and blood, Mr. Caudle. 

The man called for the water-rate to-day ; but I should like to 
know how people are to pay taxes who throw away five pounds 
to every fellow that asks them. 

Perhaps you don't know that Jack, this morning, knocked the 
shuttlecock through his bed-room window. I was going to send 
for the glazier to mend it ; but, after you lent that five pounds, 
I was sure we couldn't afford it. Oh, no : the window must go 
as it is; and pretty weather for a dear child to sleep with a 
broken window. He's got a cold already on his lungs, and I 



628 J ERR OLD. 

shouldn't at all wonder if that broken window settled him : if 
the dear boy dies, his death will be upon his father's head ; for 
I'm sure we can't now pay to mend windows. We might, though, 
and do a good many more things, if people didn't throw away their 
five pounds. 

Next Tuesday the fire insurance is due. I should like to know 
how it's to be paid. Why, it can't be paid at all. That five 
pounds would have just done it, — and now insurance is out of the 
question. And there never were so many fires as there are now. 
1 shall never close my eyes all night ; but what's that to you, so 
people can call you liberal, Mr. Caudle? Your wife and chil- 
dren may all be burnt alive in their beds, — as all of us to a cer- 
tainty shall be, for the insurance must drop. After we've in- 
sured for so many years ! But how, I should like to know, are 
people to insure who make ducks and drakes of their five 
pounds ? 

I did think we might go to Margate this summer. There's 
poor Caroline, I'm sure she wants the sea. But no, dear crea- 
ture, she must stop at home ; she'll go into a consumption, there's 
no doubt of that ; yes, sweet little angel. I've made up my mind 
to lose her now. The child might have been saved ; but people 
can't save their children and throw away five pounds too. 

I wonder where little Cherub is! While you were lending 
that five pounds, the dog ran out of the shop. You know I never 
let it go into the street, for fear it should be bit by some mad 
dog and come home and bite the children. It wouldn't at all 
astonish me if the animal was to come back with the hydro- 
phobia and give it to all the family. However, what's your 
family to you, so you can play the liberal creature with five 
pounds ? 

Do you hear that shutter, how it's banging to and fro ? Yes, 
I know what it wants as well as you : it wants a new fastening. 
I was going to send for the blacksmith to-day. But now it's out 
of the question : now it must bang of nights, since you have 
thrown away five pounds. 

Well, things have come to a pretty pass! This is the first 
night I ever made my supper of roast beef without pickles. But 
who is to afi'ord pickles when folks are always lending five 
pounds ? 

Do you hear the mice running about the room ? I hear them. 
If they were only to drag you out of bed, it would be no matter. 
Set a trap for 'em. But how are people to afford the cheese, 
when every day they lose five pounds ? 

Hark ! I'm sure there's a noise down-stairs. It wouldn't sur- 
prise me if there were thieves in the house. Well, it may be the 
cat ; but thieves are pretty sure to come some night. There's a 
wretched fastening to the back door; but these are not times 



JERROLD. 529 

to afford bolts and bars, when fools won't take care of their five 
pounds. 

Mary Anne ought to have gone to the dentist's to-morrow. 
She wants three teeth pulled out. Now it can't be done. Three 
teeth that quite disfigure the child's mouth. But there they 
must stop, and spoil the sweetest face that was ever made. Other- 
wise, she'd have been the wife for a lord. Now, when she grows 
up, who'll have her? Nobody. We shall die and leave her 
alone and unprotected in the w^orld. But what do you care for 
that ? Nothing ; so you can squander aAvay five pounds. 

And now, Mr. Caudle, see what a misery you've brought on 
your wretched family ! I can't have a satin gown, — the girls 
can't have new bonnets, — the water-rate must stand over, — Jack 
must get his death through a broken window, — our fire insurance 
can't be paid, so we shall all be victims to the devouring ele- 
ment, — we can't go to Margate, and Caroline will go to an early 
grave, — the dog will come home and bite us all mad, — that shut- 
ter will go banging forever, — the soot will always fall, — the mice 
never let us have a wink of sleep, — the thieves be always break- 
ing in the house, — and our dear Mary Anne be forever left an 
unprotected maid, — and all, all, Mr. Caudle, because you will go 
on lending five pounds ! 

LECTURE SIXTH. 
The Loaned Umbrella. 

Ah ! that's the third umbrella gone since Christmas. What 
were you to do ! Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. 
I'm very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. 
Take cold, indeed ! He doesn't look like one of the sort to take 
cold. Besides, he'd have better taken cold than take our only 
umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you 
hear the rain ? And as I'm alive, if it isn't Saint Swithin's day ! 
Do you hear it against the windows ? Nonsense ; you don't im- . 
pose upon me. You can't be asleep with such a shower as that ! 
Do you hear it, I say ? Oh, you do hear it ! Well, that's a 
pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks ; and no stirring all 
the time out of the house. Pooh ! don't think me a fool, Mr. 
Caudle. Don't insult me. He return the umbrella ! Anybody 
would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever did 
return an umbrella ! There ! — do you hear it ? Worse and worse! 
Cats and dogs, and for six weeks, — always six weeks. And no 
umbrella ! 

But I know why you lent the umbrella. Oh, yes ; I know 
very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow, — 
you knew that, and you did it on purpose. Don't tell me ; you 
hate me to go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder 

45 



530 JURE OLD. 

me. But don't you think it, Mr. Caudle. No, sir ; if it comes 
down in buckets-full, I'll go all the more. No : and I won't 
have a cab ! Where do you think the money's to come from ? 
You've got nice high notions at that club of yours ! A cab, in- 
deed ! Cost me sixteen pence at least, — sixteen pence ! — two-and- 
eight pence, for there's back again ! Cabs, indeed ! I should like 
to know who's to pay for 'em ? / can't pay for 'em ; and I'm 
sure you can't, if you go on as you do ; throwing away your pro- 
perty, and beggaring your children — buying umbrellas ! 

" Here," says Caudle in his MS., " I fell asleep, and dreamt 
that the sky was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs ; 
that, in fact, the whole world revolved under a tremendous 
umbrella !" 

LECTURE EIGHTH. 

Caudle has been made a Mason. 

Now, Mr. Caudle — Mr. Caudle, I say : oh ! you can't be asleep 
already, I know. Now, what I mean to say is this ; there's no 
use, none at all, in our having any disturbance about the matter ; 
but, at last my mind's made up, Mr. Caudle ; I shall leave you. 
Either I know all you've been doing to-night, or to-morrow morn- 
ing I quit the house. No, no ; there's an end of the marriage- 
state, I think, — an end of all confidence between man and wife, — 
if a husband's to have secrets and keep 'em all to himself. Pretty 
secrets they must be, when his own wife can't know 'em. Not 
fit for any decent person to know, I'm sure, if that's the case. 
Now, Caudle, don't let us quarrel, there's a good soul : tell me 
what's it all about ? A pack of nonsense, I dare say ; still, — not 
that I care much about it, — still, I should like to know. There's 
a dear. Eh ? Oh, don't tell me there's nothing in it ; I know 
better. I'm not a fool, Mr. Caudle ; I know there's a good deal 
in it. Now, Caudle ; just tell me a little bit of it. I'm sure I'd 
tell you any thing. You know I would. Well ? 
• And you're not going to let me know the secret, eh ? You 
mean to say, — you're not ? Now, Caudle, you know it's a hard 
matter to put me in a passion, — not that I care about the secret 
itself: no, I wouldn't give a button to know it, for it's all non- 
sense, I'm sure. It isn't the secret I care about ; it's the slight, 
Mr. Caudle ; it's the studied insult that a man pays to his wife, 
when he thinks of going through the world keeping something to 
himself which he won't let her know. Man and wife one, indeed! 
I should like to know how that can be when a man's a mason,— 
when he keeps a secret that sets him and his wife apart ? Ha ! 
you men make the laws, and so you take good care to have all 
the best of 'em to yourselves : otherwise a woman ought to be 
allowed a divorce when a man becomes a mason. When he's got 



JERROLD. 531 

a sort of corner-cupboard in his heart — a secret place in his 
mind — that his poor Avife isn't allowed to rummage ! 

AVas there ever such a man ! A man, indeed ! A brute ! — yes, 
Mr. Caudle, an unfeeling, brutal creature, when you might oblige 
me, and you won't. I'm sure I don't object to your being a 
mason ; not at all. Caudle ; I dare say it's a very good thing ; I 
dare say it is : it's only your making a secret of it that vexes me. 
But you'll tell me, — you'll tell your own Margaret ? You won't? 
You're a wretch, Mr. Caudle. 

WINTER IN LONDON. 

The streets were empty. Pitiless cold had driven all who had 
the shelter of a roof to their homes ; and the northeast blast 
seemed to howl in triumph above the untrodden snow. Winter was 
at the heart of all things. The wretched, dumb wuth excessive 
misery, suffered, in stupid resignation, the tyranny of the season. 
Human blood stagnated in the breast of w^ant ; and death in that 
despairing hour, losing its terrors, looked in the eyes of many a 
wretch a sweet deliverer. It was a time when the very poor, 
barred from the commonest things of earth, take strange counsel 
with themselves, and, in the deep humility of destitution, believe 
they are the burden and the offal of the world. 

It was a time when the easy, comfortable man, touched with 
the finest sense of human suffering, gives from his abundance, and, 
whilst bestowing, feels almost ashamed that, with such wide- 
spread misery circled round him, he has all things fitting, all 
things grateful. The smitten spirit asks wherefore he is not of 
the multitude of wretchedness ; demands to know for what espe- 
cial excellence he is promoted above the thousand, thousand 
starving creatures; in his very tenderness for misery, tests his 
privilege of exemption from a woe that withers manhood in man, 
bowing him dow^nward to the brute. And, so questioned, this 
man gives in modesty of spirit, — in very thankfulness of soul. 
His alms are not cold, formal charities, but reverent sacrifices to 
his suffering brother. 

It was a time when selfishness hugs itself in its own warmth ; 
with no other thoughts than of its pleasant possessions ; all made 
pleasanter, sweeter, by the desolation around. When the mere 
worldling rejoices the more in his warm chamber, because it is so 
bitter cold without ; when he eats and drinks with whetted appe- 
tite, because he hears of destitution prowling like a wolf around 
his well-barred house ; when, in fine, he bears his every comfort 
about him with the pride of a conqueror. A time w^hen such a 
man sees in the misery of his fellow-beings nothing save his own 
victory of fortune, — his own successes in a suffering world. To 



632 HALLAM. 

such a man, the poor are but the tattered slaves that grace his 
triumph. 

It was a time, too, when human nature often shows its true 
divinity, and, with misery like a garment clinging to it, forgets its 
wretchedness in sympathy with suffering. A time when in the 
cellars and garrets of the poor are acted scenes which make the 
noblest heroism of life ; which prove the immortal texture of the 
human heart, not wholly seared by the branding-iron of the 
torturing hours. A time when in want, in anguish, in throes of 
mortal agony, some seed is sown that bears a flower in heaven. 



HENRY HALLAM, 1778-1859. 

Henry Hallam, who has worthily won the praise of being "the most judicial 
of our great modern historians," was the son of the Dean of Wells, and was 
born in 1778. He was educated at Eton, and at Christ Church, Oxford. Having 
studied in the Inner Temple, he was called to the bar, and soon became a com- 
missioner of audit. He was among the earliest contributors to the Edinburgh 
Review;'^ and it was in his articles in this journal that he gave the first proofs 
of his erudition, his taste, and his calm, philosophic judgment. But these 
essays are now scarcely recognized in the shadow of his great historical works, 
which have raised him to the very highest literary rank. The first of these 
was A Vieio of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, 1818 (two volumes, 
quarto), being an account of the progress of Europe from the middle of the 
fifth to the end of the fifteenth century. In 1827 he published (two volumes, 
quarto) The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII. 
to the Death of George II. His Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 
Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries'^ appeared in 1837, in four volumes. 
All these works are models of research, justness of generalization, and elegance 
of expression. His great brother-laborer, Macaulay, in the same extensive and 
toilsome field, pays him the high compliment of accepting any fact vouched 
for by him as almost certain of being correct. All his works have gone 
through numerous editions, and have been translated into a number of 
European languages. 

The latter years of Mr. Hallam's life were years of great affliction, from the 
loss of his two sons; tbe eldest, Arthur Henry Hallam, — the subject of Tenny- 
son's In Memoriam, — who died in 1833, and the second, Henry Fitzmaurice 
Hallam, who was taken away shortly after he had been called to the bar in 
1850. They were both eminently accomplished, amiable, and promising young 
men. The afflicted father collected and printed for private circulation the 
Remains, in Verse and Prose, of Arthur Henry Hallam, and some friend added 
memorials of the second son. The great historian himself died January 22, 
1859, at the age of eighty-one. 

1 One of his most celebrated articles was I 2 " This is a book of which the sagacity and 
that on Scott's Dryden, vol. xiii., October, calmness are well matched with the profound 
1808. I erudition."— Arnold. 



HALL AM, 



THE FEUDAL SYSTE3L 



The peace and good order of society were not promoted by this 
system. Though private wars did not originate in the feudal 
customs, it is impossible to doubt that they were perpetuated by 
so convenient an institution, which indeed owed its universal 
establishment to no other cause. And as predominant habits of 
warfare are totally irreconcilable with those of industry, not 
merely by the immediate works of destruction which render its 
efforts unavailing, but through that contempt of peaceful occu- 
pations which they produce, the feudal system must have been 
intrinsically adverse to the accumulation of wealth, and the im- 
provement of those arts which mitigate the evils or abridge the 
labors of mankind. 

But as a school of moral discipline, the feudal institutions 
were perhaps most to be valued. Society had sunk, for several 
centuries after the dissolution of the Koman empire, into a con- 
dition of utter depravity, where, if any vices could be selected as 
more eminently characteristic than others, they were falsehood, 
treachery, and ingratitude. In slowly purging off the lees of 
this extreme corruption, the feudal spirit exerted its ameliorating 
influence. Violation of faith stood first in the catalogue of 
crimes, most repugnant to the very essence of a feudal tenure, 
most severely and promptly avenged, most branded by general 
infamy. The feudal law-books breathe throughout a spirit of 
honorable obligation. The feudal course of jurisdiction pro- 
moted, what trial by peers is peculiarly calculated to promote, a 
keener feeling as well as a readier perception of moral as well as 
of legal distinctions. In the reciprocal services of lord and vassal, 
there was ample scope for every magnanimous and disinterested 
energy. The heart of man, when placed in circumstances that 
have a tendency to excite them, will seldom be deficient in such 
sentiments. No occasions could be more favorable than the pro- 
tection of a faithful supporter, or the defence of a beneficent 
sovereign, against such powerful aggression as left little prospect 
except of sharing in his ruin. 

3IAGNA CHART A, 

In the reign of John, all the rapacious exactions usual to these 
Norman kings were not only redoubled, but mingled with other 
outrages of tyranny still more intolerable. These, too, were to 
be endured at the hands of a prince utterly contemptible for his 
folly and cowardice. One is surprised at the forbearance dis- 
played by the barons, till they took up arms at length in that 
confederacy, which ended in establishing the Great Charter of 
Liberties. As this was the first effort towards a legal government, 

46* 



534 HALLAM. 

so is it beyond comparison the most important event in our 
history, except that Revolution without which its benefits would 
have been rapidly annihilated. The constitution of England has 
indeed no single date from which its duration is to be reckoned. 
The institutions of positive law, the far more important changes 
which time has wrought in the order of society during six hun- 
dred years subsequent to the Great Charter, have undoubtedly 
lessened its direct application to our present circumstances. But 
it is still the keystone of English liberty. All that has since 
been obtained is little more than as confirmation or commentary ; 
and if every subsequent law were to be swept away, there would 
still remain the bold features that distinguish a free from a 
despotic monarchy. * * ^ ^ 

An equal distribution of civil rights to all classes of freemen 
forms the peculiar beauty of the charter. In this just solicitude 
for the people, and in the moderation which infringed upon no 
essential prerogative of the monarchy, we may perceive a libe- 
rality and patriotism very unlike the selfishness which is some- 
times rashly imputed to those ancient barons. And, as far as we 
are guided by historical testimony, two great men, the pillars of 
our church and state, may be considered as entitled beyond the 
rest to the glory of this monument, — Stephen Langton, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, and William, Earl of Pembroke. To 
their temperate zeal for a legal government, England was in- 
debted during that critical period for the two greatest blessings 
that patriotic statesmen could confer : the establishment of civil 
liberty upon an immovable basis, and the preservation of national 
independence under the ancient line of sovereigns, which rasher 
men were about to exchange for the dominion of France. * * 

The essential clauses of Magna Charta are those which protect 
the personal liberty and property of all freemen, by giving se- 
curity from arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary spoliation. 
"No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of 
his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or 
exiled, or any otherwise destroyed ; nor will we pass upon him, 
nor send upon him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by 
the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny 
or delay to any man, justice or right." It is obvious that these 
words, interpreted by any honest court of law, convey an ample 
security for the two main rights of civil society. From the era, 
therefore, of King John's charter, it must have been a clear 
principle of our constitution that no man can be detained in 
prison without trial. Whether courts of justice framed the writ 
of Habeas Corpus in conformity to the spirit of this clause, or 
found it already in their register, it became from that era the 
right of every subject to demand it. That writ, rendered more 
actively remedial by the statute of Charles 11,, but founded upon 



UALLAM. 635 

the broad basis of Magna Charta, is the principal bulwark of 
English liberty; and if ever temporary circumstances, or the 
doubtful plea of political necessity, shall lead men to look on its 
denial with apathy, the most distinguishing characteristic of our 
constitution will be effaced. 



HOUSES AND FURNITURE OF THE NOBLES IN THE MIDDLE 

AGES. 

It is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged 
in stately or even in well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their 
dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants in 
capacity as they were in convenience. The usual arrangement 
consisted of an entrance-passage running through the house, with 
a hall on one side, a parlor beyond, and one or two chambers 
above; and on the opposite side a kitchen, pantry, and other 
offices. Such was the ordinary manor-house of the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries, as appears not only from the documents and 
engravings, but, as to the latter period, from the buildings them- 
selves, — sometimes, though not very frequently, occupied by 
families of consideration, more often converted into farm-houses 
or distinct tenements. Larger structures were erected by men 
of great estates during the reigns of Henry IV. and Edward IV. ; 
but very few can be traced higher ; and such has been the effect 
of time, still more through the advance or decline of families, 
and the progress of architectural improvement, than the natural 
decay of these buildings, that I should conceive it difficult to 
name a house in England, still inhabited by a gentleman, and 
not belonging to the order of castles, the principal apartments 
of which are older than the reign of Henry VII. The instances, 
at least, must be extremely few. 

The two most essential improvements in architecture during 
this period, one of which had been missed by the sagacity of 
Greece and Rome, were chimneys and glass windoAvs. Nothing, 
apparently, can be more simple than the former ; yet the wisdom 
of ancient times had been content to let the smoke escape by an 
aperture in the centre of the roof; and a discovery, of which 
Vitruvius had not a glimpse, was made, perhaps, by some for- 
gotten semi-barbarian ! About the middle of the fourteenth cen- 
tury the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in England and 
in Italy ; but they are found in several of our castles which bear 
a much older date. This country seems to have lost very early 
the art of making glass, which was preserved in France, whence 
artificers were brought into England to furnish the windows in 
some new churches in the seventh century. It is said that, in 
the reign of Henry III., a few ecclesiastical buildings had glazed 
windows. Suger, however, a century before had adorned his 



536 HALLAM. 

great work, tlie Abbey of St. Denis, with windows, not only glazed, 
but painted; and I presume that other churches of the same 
class, both in France and England, especially after the lancet- 
shaped window had yielded to one of ampler dimensions, were 
generally decorated in a similar manner. Yet glass is said not 
to have been employed in the domestic architecture of France 
before the fourteenth century ; and its introduction into England 
was probably by no means earlier. Nor, indeed, did it come into 
general use during the period of the middle ages. Glazed win- 
dows were considered as movable furniture, and probably bore a 
high price. When the Earls of Northumberland, as late as the 
reign of Elizabeth, left Alnwick Castle, the windows were taken 
out of their frames and carefully laid by. 

But if the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would 
not seem very spacious or convenient at present, far less would 
this luxurious generation be content with their internal accom- 
modations. A gentleman's house containing three or four beds 
was extraordinarily well provided ; few probably had more than 
two. The walls were commonly bare, without wainscot, or even 
plaster, except that some great houses were furnished with hang- 
ings, and that, perhaps, hardly so soon as the reign of Edward IV. 
It is unnecessary to add that neither libraries of books nor 
pictures could have found a place among furniture. Silver-plate 
was very rare, and hardly used for the table. A few inventories 
of furniture that still remain exhibit a miserable deficiency. 
And this was incomparably greater in private gentlemen's houses 
than among citizens, and especially foreign merchants. We have 
an inventory of the goods belonging to Contarini, a rich Venetian 
trader, at his house in St. Botolph's Lane, a.d. 1481. There 
appear to have been no less than ten beds, and glass windows 
are especially noted as movable furniture. No mention, how- 
ever, is made of chairs or looking-glasses. If we compare his 
account, however trifling in our estimation, with a similar in- 
ventory of furniture in Skipton Castle, the great honor of the 
Earls of Cumberland, and among the most splendid mansions 
of the north, not at the same period, — for I have not found any 
inventory of a nobleman's furniture so ancient, — but in 1572, 
after almost a century of continual improvement, we sh§,ll be 
astonished at the inferior provision of the baronial residence. 
There were not more than seven or eight beds in this great 
castle, nor had any of the chambers either chairs, glasses, or 
carpets. 



HUNT. 



637 



LEIGH HUNT, 178J^-1S59. 

Few authors of the first half of the nineteenth century more deserved the 
appellation of " a man of letters" than James Henry Leigh Hunt, and few 
exercised a greater influence upon the literature of his day. He was born in 
London, October 19, 1784, and educated at Christ Church Hospital, where he 
continued till his fifteenth year. He then entered the office of an attorney ; 
next became a clerk in the War-Office, and finally decided to make literature 
his profession. In 1805 his brother John established a paper called The News, for 
which our author wrote the theatrical criticisms, which were well received. 
Three years afterwards he joined with his brother in setting up the weekly 
paper called The Exaviiner. The noble and independent spirit in which it was 
conducted, as well as the talent and scholarship it displayed, soon drew all eyes 
upon it, and it took a very high rank and exerted a very wide influence. For 
its own peace it spoke out too freely against the measures of the government ; 
and three times were the proprietors prosecuted for a libel, but acquitted. The 
fourth time they were not so fortunate; for when the Morning Post, which then 
afi'ected to be the organ of the Court, in its usual style of fulsome flattery, 
eulogized the Prince Eegent (afterwards George IV.), whose character was 
notoriously infamous, and called him, among other things, an "Adonis," the 
Exanmier thus rejoined, '* translating the language of adulation into that of 
truth." 

GEORGE THE FOURTH. 

What person unacquainted with the true state of the case 
would imagine, in reading these astounding eulogies, that this 
" glory of the people" was the subject of millions of shrugs and 
reproaches? that this "protector of the arts" had named a 
wretched foreigner his historical painter, in disparagement or in 
ignorance of the merits of his own countrymen ? that this 
" Maecenas of the age" patronized not a single deserving writer ? 
that this " breather of eloquence" could not say a few decent ex- 
tempore words, if we are to judge, at least, from what he said to 
his regiment on its embarkation for Portugal? that this "con- 
queror of hearts" was the disappointer of hopes ? that this " ex- 
citer of desire" [bravo! Messieurs of the Posf], this "Adonis in 
loveliness," was a corpulent man of fifty ? in short, this delightful, 
blissful, wise, pleasurable, honorable, virtuous, true, and immortal 
prince was a violator of his word, a libertine, over head and ears 
in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of 
gamblers and demireps, a man who has just closed half a century 
without one single claim on the gratitude of his country, or the 
respect of posterity ?^ 



1 This truthful picture of the character of 
George IV. reminds us of the epigram on the 
four Georges, by Walter Savage Landor : — 

"George the First was always reckon'd 
Vile, — but viler George the Second : 



And what mortal ever heard 
Any good of George the Third? 
When from earth the Fourth descended, 
Praise the Lord, the Georges ended !" 



638 HUNT. 

For this a prosecution was instituted against the two brothers, and the jury- 
found a verdict of guilty. They were fined a thousand pounds,^ and imprisoned 
for two years in separate cells. Offers were made by the government not to 
press either penalty if a pledge would be given that no similar attacks should 
appear in their paper; but they were firmly and nobly rejected. They also de- 
clined to allow a generous stranger to pay the fine in their stead. 

Though Leigh Hunt was ill when he entered prison, and though his illness 
and want of exercise permanently injured his constitution, he was not idle in 
his confinement. He continued to write and amuse himself in various ways. 
His independent spirit could not be broken by such miserable efforts of tyranny j 
and he proved quite conclusively that 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage." 

The following is his account of some of the ways in which he amused him- 
self in his confinement. 

THE A UTHOR IN PRISON.'^ 

I papered the walls with a trellis of roses ; I had the ceiling 
colored with clouds and sky ; the barred windows were screened 
with Venetian blinds ; and when my bookcases were set up, with 
their busts and flowers, and a piano-forte made its appearance, 
perhaps there was not a handsomer room on that side the 
water. I took a pleasure, when a stranger knocked at the door, 
to see him come in and stare about him. The surprise, on issuing 
from the borough and passing through the avenues of a jail, was 
dramatic. Charles Lamb declared there was no other such room 
except in a fairy-tale. But I had another surprise, which was a 
garden. There was a little yard outside, railed off from another 
belonging to the neighboring ward. This yard I shut in with 
green palings, adorned it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick 
bed of earth from a nursery, and even contrived to have a grass- 
plot. The earth I filled with flowers and young trees. There 
was an apple-tree from which we managed to get a pudding the 
second year. As to my flowers, they were allowed to be perfect. 
A poet from Derbyshire (Mr. Moore) told me he had seen no 
such heart's-ease. I bought the " Parnaso Italiano" while in 
prison, and used often to think of a passage in it while looking 
at this miniature piece of horticulture : — 

" Mio picciol orto, 
A me sei vigna, e campo, e silva, e prato." — Baldi. 

" My little garden, 
To me thou'rt vineyard, field, and wood, and meadow." 

Here I wrote and read in fine weather, sometimes under an 

1 Which with costs amounted to two thousand I Charles Lamb saw him almost daily; and 
pounds. Moore, Byron, Hazlitt, Shelley, Jeremy Ben- 

'-^He had much public sympathy while in tham, and many others of celebrity, frequently 
l)rison, and was visited by numerous friends. | went to see him. 



HUNT. 



539 



awning. In autumn, my trellises were hung with scarlet runners, 
which added to the flowery investment. I used to shut my eyea 
in my arm-chair, and affect to think myself hundreds of miles 
off. But my triumph was in issuing forth of a morning. A 
wicket out of the garden led into the large one belonging to the 
prison. The latter was only for vegetables ; but it contained a 
cherry-tree, which I twice saw in blossom. 

On leaving prison he pitblished his Story of Rimini, an Italian tale in verse, 
containing some exquisite lines and passages. He set up also a small weekly 
paper, called The Indicator, on the plan of the periodical essayists, which was 
well received. In 1822 he went to Italy to reside with Lord Byron, returned 
in 1826, and in 1828 published Lord Byron aiid his Contemporaries, — a record of 
his brief and not very pleasant companionship with his lordship in Italy. In 
the same year he started The Covipanion, a sequel to The Indicator. In 1834 he 
published a collected edition of his poetical works ; and the same year appeared 
the London Journal, which he edited for two years. The rest of his life was 
passed in literary projects ; in getting into debt, and getting out of it; in plea- 
sant communing with his numerous literary friends, among whom were Barry 
Cornwall, Thomas Carlyle, the Brownings, and many others ; in attempts to live 
cheerfully under affliction; and, chief of all, in accumulating book-lore.^ His 
closing years were rendered more happy by an opportune pension of two hun- 
dred pounds a year, which Lord John Russell obtained for him. He died on 
the 28th of August, 1859, and was buried, according to his wish, in Kensal Green 
Cemetery. 1 

Leigh Hunt's reputation rests upon his poems and essays, — chiefly the latter; 
though his Story of Rimini is an exceedingly beautiful and interesting tale, 
and his translations are among the best things of the kind we possess, ** trans- 
porting the wine of Greece and Italy to England, making its color and flavor 
rather improved than otherwise by the voyage." As an essayist he is always 
cheerful, philosophic, and instructive. His essays in the Indicator and Exami- 
ner will always be ranked as classic English prose, — not, perhaps, with the Spec- 
tator in respect of polish, wit, and courtly ease, but above it in delicate sensi- 
bility of fancy and imaginative adornments of life's commonplaces. His 
aim is to make life happier and more beautiful ; and if an exuberant but genial 
vivacity of wit, a rich imagination, and a healthy interest in human joys, 
Borrows, and duties, can adorn and make truer our existence, then has Leigh 
Hunt's kindly purpose succeeded. ^ 



IRead a pleasant short article in Chambers's 
Book of Days ; also, North British Review, No. 
66. Of his Autobiography the latter says, " It is 
delightful for many things : for its graceful 
sketches of old times and manners; for its 
happy and life-like pictures of all sorts of 
interesting people; but most of all for the 
invincible gallantry of his long struggle with 
a hard fate." 

2 Besides the works mentioned, his other pro- 
ductions are — 1, Autobiography; with Remi- 
niscences of Friends and Contemporaries, three 
volumes; 2, The Seer; or. Commonplaces Re- 
freshed ; 3, Wit and Humor, selected from the 
English Poets ; 4, Stm'iesfrom the Italian Poets, 
with lives of the writers ; 5, Imagination and 
tUncy; or, Selections from the English Poets; 



6, A Jar of Honey from 3tount Hybla; 7, Tlie 
Town ; 8, Captain Sword and Captain Pen, — a 
poetical denunciation of war; 9, The Descent 
of Liberty, a Mask ; 10, Classic Tales ; 11, Hero 
and Leander ; 12, Feasts nf the Poets ; 13, The 
Town ; 14, The Old Coui't Suburbs, two volumes. 
The two last are full of the rich talk of a most 
accomplished literary antiquary. Strolling 
through London, they invest the commonest 
places with beauty, partly by their genial 
piquancy of description, and partly by their 
exhaustiess stores of anecdote. Obscure facta 
in history, equally with celebrated characters 
in literature, are vividly illustrated in these 
volumes, by reason of the half-personal rela* 
tions which are made to attach us to them. 



540 HUNT. 



FUNERAL OF THE LOVERS OF ''RIMINL" 

The days were then at close of autumn still, 
A little rainy, and, towards nightfall, chill ; 
There was a fitful moaning air abroad ; 
And ever and anon, over the road, 
The last few leaves came fluttering from the trees, 
Whose trunks now throng' d to sight, in dark varieties. 
The people, who from reverence kept at home, 
Listen' d till afternoon to hear them come ; 
And hour on hour went by, and naught was heard 
But some chance horseman, or the wind that stirr'd, 
Till towards the vesper hour ; and then 'twas said 
Some heard a voice, which seem'd as if it read ; 
And others said that they could hear the sound 
Of many horses trampling the moist ground. 
Still, nothing came, — till on a sudden, just 
As the wind open'd in a rising gust, 
A voice of chanting rose, and, as it spread, 
They plainly heard the anthem for the dead. 
It was the choristers who went to meet 
The train, and now were entering the first street. 
Then turn'd aside that city, young and old. 
And in their lifted hands the gushing sorrow roll'd. 
But of the older people, few could bear 
To keep the window, when the train drew near ; 
And all felt double tenderness to see 
The bier approaching slow and steadily, 
On which those two in senseless coldness lay. 
Who but a few short months — it seem'd a day — 
Had left their walls, lovely in form and mind. 
In sunny manhood he — she first of womankind. 
They say that when Duke Guido saw them come, 
He clasp'd his hands, and, looking round the room, 
Lost his old wits forever. From the morrow 
None saw him after. But no more of sorrow. 
On that same night those lovers silently 
Were buried in one grave under a tree ; 
There, side by side, and hand in hand, they lay 
In the green ground : and on fine nights in May 
Young hearts betroth'd used to go there to pray. 

DIRGE. 

Bless'd is the turf, serenely bless' d, 
Where throbbing hearts may sink to rest. 
Where life's long journey turns to sleep, 
Nor ever pilgrim wakes to weep. 
A little sod, a few sad flowers, 
A tear for long-departed hours. 
Is all that feeling hearts request 
To hush their weary thoughts to rest. 
There shall no vain ambition come 
To lure them from their quiet home; 
Nor sorrow lift, with heart-strings riven, 
The meek imploring eye to heaven; 



HUNT. 541 



Nor sad remembrance stoop to shed 
His wrinkles on the shimberer's head 
And never, never love repair 
To breathe his idle whispers there ! 



FLOWERS. 

\ We are the sweet flowers, 

Born of sunny showers, ' 
(Think, whene'er you see us, what our beauty saith ;) 

Utterance mute and brit^ht, 

Of some unknown delight, 
We fill the air with pleasure by our simple breath ; 

All who see us love us, — 

We befit all places ; 
Unto sorrow we give smiles, and unto graces, graces. 

Mark our ways, how noiseless 

All, and sweetly voiceless, 
Though the March winds pipe, to make our passage clear, 

Not a whisper tells 

Where our small seed dwells, 
Nor is known the moment green when our tips appear. 

We thread the earth in silence, 

In silence build our bowers, — 
And leaf by leaf in silence show, till we laugh a-top, sweet flowers. 



ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL. 

Abou Ben Adhem — may his tribe increase ! — 

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 

And saw, within the moonlight in his room, 

Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, 

An angel writing in a book of gold. 

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 

And to the presence in the room he said, 

" What writest thou ?" The vision raised its head, 

And, with a look made of all sweet accord. 

Answer' d, "The names of those who love the Lord." 

''And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so," 

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, 

But cheerly still ; and said, " I pray thee, then, 

Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." 

The angel wrote, and vanish'd. The next night 

It came again with a great wakening light, 

And show'd the names whom love of God had bless' d, 

And, lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. 



SULTAN MAHMOUD—AN EASTERN TALE. 

There came a man, making his hasty moan, 
Before the Sultan Mahmoud on his throne, 
And crying out, " My sorrow is my right. 
And I will see tbe Sultan, and to-night." 
" Sorrow," said Mahmoud, " is a reverend thing ; 
I recognize its right, as king with king ; 
46 



542 HUNT. 

Speak on." "A fiend has got into my house," 

Exclaim'd the staring man, " and tortures us ; 

One of thine officers — he comes, the abhorr'd, 

And takes possession of my house, my board, 

My bed : — I have two daughters and a wife. 

And the wild villain comes, and makes me mad with life." 

" Is he there now ?" said Mahmoud. " No ; he left 

The house when I did, of my wits bereft ; 

And laugh' d me doAvn the street because I vow'd 

I'd bring the prince himself to lay him in his shroud. 

I'm mad with want — I'm mad with misery. 

And, O thou Sultan Mahmoud, God cries out for thee !" 

The Sultan comforted the man, and said, 
" Go home, and I will send thee wine and laread" 
(For he was poor), " and other comforts. Go : 
And should the wretch return, let Sultan Mahmoud know." 

In three days' time, with haggard eyes and beard, 
And shaken voice, the suitor reapp'tai-'d. 
And said, " He's come." Malimoud said not a word, 
But rose and took four slaves, each with a sword. 
And went with the vex'd man. They reach the place, 
And hear a voice, and see a female face. 
That to the window flutter' d in atiright : 
" Go in," said Mahmoud, " and put out the light ; 
But tell the females first to leave the room ; 
And, when the drunkard follows them, we come." 

The man went in. There w\as a cry, and hark ! 
A table falls, the window is struck dark : 
Forth rush the breathless women ; and behind 
With curses comes the fiend, in desperate mind. 
In vain : the sabres soon cut short the strife. 
And chop the shrieking wretch, and drink his bloody life. 

"Now light the light!" the Sultan cried aloud. 
'Twas done ; he took it in his hand, and bow'd 
Over the corpse, and look'd upon the face ; 
Then turn'd and knelt beside it in the place. 
And said a prayer, and from his lips there crei)t 
Some gentle words of pleasure, and he wept. 

In reverent silence the spectators wait. 
Then bring him at his call both wine and meat; 
And when he had refresh'd his noble heart. 
He bade his host be blest, and rose up to depart. 

The man amazed, all mildness now, and tears, 
Fell at the Sultan's feet, with many prayers. 
And begg'd him to vouchsafe to tell his slave 
The reason, first, of that command he gave 
About the light ; then, when he saw the face, 
Why he knelt down ; and lastly, how it was 
That fare so poor as his detain'd him in the place. 

The Sultan said, with much humanity, 
" Since first I saw thee come, and heard thy cry. 



I could not rid me of a dread that one 

By whom such daring villanies were done 

Must be some lord of mine, perhaps a lawless son. 

Whoe'er he was, I knew my task, but fear'd 

A father's heart, in case the worst appear'd ; 

For this I had the light put out ; but when 

I saw the face, and found a stranger slain, 

I knelt, and thank'd the sovei:eign arbiter. 

Whose work I had perform' d through pain and fear; 

And then I rose, and was refresh' d with food, 

The first time since thou cam'st, and marr'dst my solitude." 

THE POET'S 3IISSI0N. 

It is with the poet's creations, as with Nature's, great or small. 
Wherever truth and beauty, whatever their amount, can be wor- 
thily shaped into verse, and answer to some demand for it in our 
hearts, there poetry is to be found ; whether in productions grand 
and beautiful as some great event, or some mighty, leafy solitude, 
or no bigger and more pretending than a sweet face or a bunch 
of violets; whether in Homer's epic or Gray's Elegy, in the 
enchanted gardens of Ariosto and Spenser, or the very pot-herbs 
of the Schoolmistress of Shenstone, the balms of the simplicity 
of a cottage. Not to know and feel this, is to be deficient in the 
universality of Nature herself, who is a poetess on the smallest 
as well as the largest scale, and who calls upon us to admire all 
her productions, — not indeed with the same degree of admiration, 
but with no refusal of it, except to defect. 

Milton has said that poetry, in comparison with science, is 
"simple, sensuous, and passionate." By simple, he means unper- 
plexed and self-evident ; by sensuous, genial and full of imagery; 
by passionate, excited and enthusiastic. I am aware that differ- 
ent constructions have been put on some of these words; but the 
context seems to me to necessitate those before us. 

AVhat the poet has to cultivate above all things is love and 
truth ; what he has to avoid, like poison, is the fleeting and the 
false. He will get no good by proposing to be " in earnest at the 
moment." His earnestness must be innate and habitual, — born 
with him, and felt to be his most precious inheritance. " I expect 
neither profit nor general fame by my writings," says Coleridge, 
in the Preface to his Poems ; " and I consider myself as having 
been amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to me its 
^own exceeding greed reward;' it has soothed my afflictions; it 
has multiplied and refined my enjoyments ; it has endeared soli- 
tude ; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the 
good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me." 

As to UTILITY, no man recognizes the worth of it more than 
the poet : he only desires that the meaning of the term may not 
come short of its greatness, and exclude the noblest necessities of 



544 



BE QUINCE Y. 



his fellow-creatures. He is quite as mucli pleased, for instance, 
■with the facilities for rapid conveyance afforded him by the rail- 
road as the dullest confiner of its advantages to that single idea, 
or as the greatest two-idead man who varies that single idea with 
hugging himself on his " buttons" or his good dinner. But he sees 
also the beauty of the country through which he passes, of the 
towns, of the heavens, of the steam-engine itself, thundering and 
fuming along like a magic horse, of the affections that are carry- 
ing, perhaps, half the passengers on their journey, nay, of those 
of the great two-idead man ; and, beyond all this, he discerns the 
incalculable amount of good, and knowledge, and refinement, and 
mutual consideration, which this wonderful invention is fitted to 
circulate over the globe, perhaps to the displacement of war itself, 
and certainly to the diffusion of millions of enjoyments. 

"And a button-maker, after all, invented it!" cries our friend. 

Pardon me ; it was a nobleman. A button-maker may be a 
very excellent and a very poetical man, too, and yet not have 
been the first man visited by a sense of the gigantic powers of 
the combination of water and fire. It was a nobleman who first 
thought of this most poetical bit of science ; it was a nobleman 
who first thought of it, a captain who first tried it, and a button- 
maker who perfected it. And he who put the nobleman on such 
thoughts was the great philosopher Bacon, who said that poetry 
had " something divine in it," and was necessary to the satisfac- 
tion of the human mind. 



THOMAS DE QUINCE Y, 1785-1859. 

Thomas De Quincey was the son of a Manchester merchant, and was born on 
the loth of August, 1785. His father died when he was quite young ;i but he 
received a liberal education, first at the Manchester Grammar School, and 
afterwards at Oxford, where he resided from his eighteenth to his twenty-third 
year. How he spent his time there he has given us no account; but, from his 
extensive acquirements, it must have been profitably spent, for he was remark- 
able, even then, for his rare conversational powers, and for his extraordinary 
stock of information upon every subject that was started. At an early age he 
adopted the baneful practice of opium-eating, to which may doubtless be attri- 
buted the fact that, despite his vast learning and his brilliant style, he has 
exerted so little influence upon the reading world; for his writings, being the 
emanations of a mind not truly in a normal or sane state, have not touched or 
reached the common sympathies of mankind.^ 



1 He left to his widow an income of about 
ten thousand dollars a year. 

2 " The position of De Quincey in the literature 
of the present day is remarkable. We might 



search in vain for a writer who, with equal 
powers, has made an equally slight impression 
upon the general public. His style is superb ; 
his powers of reasoning unsurpassed; hia 



DE QUINCEY. 



545 



In 1809 he became acquainted with Wordsworth, Lamb, and Coleridge, and 
took up his abode at " the Lakes,''i where he resided ten or eleven years, de- 
voting his time to Grecian, Roman, and, indeed, universal literature j but he 
did not turn his attention to literature, except as an amusement, until 1821, 
when pecuniary embarrassments compelled him to become a contributor to the 
London Magazine, in which he published, in numbers, that remarkable work, 
which created quite a sensation at the time, — The Confessions of an English 
Opium- Eater. '^ From that time he labored with great but fitful industry on a 
variety of publications, and showed talents that might have produced some- 
thing far more valuable than mere contributions to periodicals, had their pos- 
sessor been less of a dreamer and more of a man.^ Besides the London Maga- 
zine, he wrote for most of the leading magazines of the day, and that, too, so 
anonymously that it was said of him that he "was buried and scattered in 
the British periodical literature of his generation.'"* 

De Quincey has classified his own works under three heads : — first, papers 
whose chief purpose is to interest and amuse, — such as autobiographical 
sketehes,^ reminiscences of distinguished cotemporaries,^ biographical me- 
moirs,'^ whimsical narratives, and such-like; secondly, essays of a speculative, 
critical, didactic character;^ and, thirdly, papers belonging to the order of 
what may be called "prose-poetry," or the imaginative.^ Under anyone of 
these three aspects he takes a very high rank among British prose-writers,i° 



imagiuation is warm and brilliant; and his 
humor both masculine and delicate. Yet, 
with this singular combination of gifts, he is 
comparatively little known outside of that 
small circle of men who love literature for its 
own sake." — Quarterly Rrview, July, 1861. 

1 " He took a lea^se of Wordsworth's cottage, 
wedded a gentle and affectionate wife, and, 
amidst the pleasure derived from lake scenery, 
a good library, and his beloved drug, led the 
life of a scholar, a dreamer, and a voluptuary." 
— London Athenseum, December, 1859. 

2 These Confessions were written in a little 
room at the back of the premises of the sub- 
sequently distinguished publislier, II. G. Bolin, 
No. 4 York Street, Covent Garden, where De 
Quincey resided for several years in compara- 
tive seclusion, "Of all his writings," says 
the Athenseum, — "and all are steeped in 
egotism, — the Confessions are the most charac- 
teristic. In their elegance of diction, playful- 
ness of style, subdued pedantry, and utter 
shamelessness, the entire man is made known 
to the reader." 

3 " Deleterious seclusion from society, con- 
tinued indulgence in opium, and the scarcely 
less hurtful practice of unceasingly specu- 
lating on his own emotions, deprived his heart 
and intellect of their best qualities." — London 
Athenieum. 

* He also wrote for the Encyclopsedia Britan- 
nica two admirable biographical sketches, — 
of Shakspeare and Pope. In Lowndes's Biblio- 
grapher's Manual, as edited by Bohn, is a list 
of one hundred and six articles which have 
been ascertained to be De Quincey's, in the va- 
rious periodical literature of the day ! Many 
of these are not in the London edition of his 
works, and some not even in the American 
edition (which is the best), in twenty volumes, 
published by Ticknor & Fields, of Boston. 



5 Such as Confessions of an Opium-Eater, &c. 

6 Shelley, Keats, Lamb, Foster, Hazlitt, 
Landor, Sir James Mackintosh, Coleridge, 
Wordsworth, Southey, &c. &c. 

7 Shakspeare, Pope, Goldsmith, &c. &c. 

8 Homer and the Hoineridie, The Csesars, 
Cicero, Plato's Republic, Philosophy of Herodo- 
tus, &c. &c. 

8 Suspina de Profundis, &c. 

10 Metaphysical discussion, philosophical cri- 
ticism, and biography are the classes of sub- 
jects in which Mr. De Quincey excels; though 
at times he exhibits such extravagances of 
opinion as we should think he could not be 
guilty of, unless under the influence of his 
early and long-cherished friend, — " opium." 
Witness his essay on Pope, in which he most 
unjustly depreciates that great poet ; and his 
remarks on Wordsworth, so extravagantly, if 
not absurdly, eulogistic. For instance, he 
says, " Meditative poetry is perhaps that which 
will finally maintain most power upon genera- 
tions more thoughtful; and in this depart- 
ment, at least, there is little competition to be 
apprehended by Wordsworth from any thing 
that has appeared since the death of Shak- 
speare!" Such extravagant, if not absurd. 
eulogy of a poet defeats its own end. As if 
Milton — shade of the world's great bard, par- 
don the profane if ! — as if Milton, Young, Cow- 
per, Collins, Akenside, Gray, Pollok, Cole- 
ridge, and a host of others, had written no 
" meditative poetry" ! Besides, De Quincey goes 
upon the certainly false assumption that the 
time will come when meditative poetry will 
take the highest rank. This never will, never 
can be, till the nature of man is changed. 
Man is not all " meditation." He loves, in- 
deed, at times to "meditate;" but he also 
loves to be moved. He has a soul as well as a 
mind. He has a heart to feel, sympathies to 



46* 



546 



DE QUINCE Y. 



and will always command the admiration of literary men.i He died on the 
8th of December, 1859.2 

A DREAM OF THE OPIUM-EATEB. 

The dream commenced with a music which noAV I often heard 
in dreams, — a music of preparation and of awakening suspense ; 
a music like the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and which, 
like that, gave the feeling of a vast march, of infinite cavalcades 
filing of, and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning 
was come of a mighty day, — a day of crisis and of final hope for 
human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse and labor- 
ing in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where, — 
somehow, I knew not how, — by some beings, I knew not whom, — 
a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, — was evolving like a 
great drama or piece of music ; with which my sympathy was 
the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its 
cause, its nature, and its j^ossible issue. I, as is usual in dreams 
(where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every move- 
ment), had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. 
I had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it ; and yet again 
had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon 
me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. "Deeper than ever 
plummet sounded," I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the 
passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake ; some 
mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded or trumpet 
had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms ; hurryings to and 
fro ; trepidations of innumerable fugitives — I knew not whether 
from the good cause or the bad ; darkness and lights ; tempest 
and human faces ; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, 
female forms, and the features that w^ere worth all the world 
to me, and but a moment allowed, — and clasped hands, and 
heart-breaking partings, and then — everlasting farewells ! and, 



be excited, admiration to be aroused, tears to 
shed. His fancy is to be warmed, his imagina- 
tion to be kindled by the magic touch of the 
poet's pen. Man, too, has taste ; has a sense 
of the beautiful, the tender, the grand; and 
that poet who takes the deepest and strongest 
hold upon the he4RT, who excites the feelings 
of pity, of love, or of admiration, who inspires 
the soul with the feeling of the grand, the 
terafic, the sublime, who shows the power of 
the true poet {the maker), giving "to airy 
nothing a local habitation and a name," — he 
it is who will be most read and loved and ad- 
mired while the world lasts. 

1 " A great master of English composition, — 
a critic of uncommon delicacy, — an honest and 
unflinching investigator of received opinions, 
—a philosophic inquirer, second only to his 
first and sole hero, — De Quincey has departed 
from us, full of years, and left no successor to 
Lis rank. The exquisite finish of his style, 



with the scholastic vigor of his logic, form a 
combination which centuries may never re- 
produce, but which every generation should 
study as one of the marvels of English litera- 
ture." — Quarterly Review. Read also an article 
in Batne's Essays, and another in Masson. 

" Besides his rare scholarship, his very ex- 
tensive reading, and his singular familiarity 
with German literature, Mr. De Quincey's 
genius appears to be distinguished chiefly by 
his rich and strange humor; his great anar 
lytic power and subtlety of understanding; 
his extraordinary, almost unequalled, imagina- 
tive eloquence ; and a mastery over language, 
both in regard to precision and magnificence, 
which has no parallel at all among his con- 
temporaries." — Gentleman's Magazine, August, 
1857. 

2 He left five chtildren, — three daughters 
and two sons : of these, one was a captain in 
the army, and the other a physician in Brazil. 



DE QUINCE Y. 547 

vith a sigh siicli as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous 
mother uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound was rever- 
berated, — everlasting farewells ! and again, and yet again, rever- 
berated, — everlasting ftirewells ! 

And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud, " I will sleep no 
more !" 

THE THREE LADIES OF SORROW. 

\yhat is it the sisters are ? What is it that they do ? 

The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our 
Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, 
calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice 
was heard of lamentation, — Rachel weeping for her children, 
and refused to be comforted. She it was that stood in Beth- 
lehem on the night when Herod's sword swept its nurseries 
of Innocents, and the little feet were stiifened forever, which, 
heard at times as they tottered along floors overhead, woke 
pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked in 
heaven. 

Her eyes are sweet and subtile, wild and sleepy, by turns ; 
oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challeuging the 
heavens. She M^ears a diadem round her head. And I knew by 
childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds when 
she heard that sobbing of litanies or the thunderiug of organs, 
and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. This 
sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than papal at her 
girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. She, to my 
knowledge, sate all last summer by the bedside of the blind beg- 
gar, — him that so often and so gladly I talked with, whose j^ious 
daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted 
the temptations of play and village mirth, to travel all day long 
on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this did God send 
her a great reward. In the sioring-time of the year, and whilst yet 
her own spring was budding, he recalled her to himself. But her 
blind father mourns forever over her; still he dreams at midnight 
that the little guiding hand is locked wdthin his own ; and still 
he wakens to a darkness that is now w^ithin a second and a deeper 
darkness. =h * * By the power of her keys it is that Our 
Lady of Tears glides a ghostly intruder into the chambers of 
sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges 
to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is 
the first-born of her house, and has the widest empire, let us 
honor with the title of " Madonna." 

The second sister is called Mater Susjoirlor^im, Our Lady of 
Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the 
winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever 
seen, would be neither sweet nor subtile ; no man could read their 



548 



DE QUINCE Y. 



story ; they would be found filled with perishing dreams and with 
wrecks of forgotten delirium. But she raises not her eyes ; her 
head, on which sits a dilapidated turban, droops forever, forever 
fastens on the dust. She weeps not. She groans not. But she 
sighs inaudibly at intervals. Her sister Madonna is oftentimes 
stormy and frantic, raging in the highest against heaven, and 
demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of Sighs never 
clamors, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspirations. She 
is humble to abjectness. . Hers is the meekness that belongs to 
"the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep. Whisper 
she may, but it is to herself in the twilight. Mutter she does at 
times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as she is deso- 
late, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to his rest. 
This sister is the visitor of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the bonds- 
man to the oar in the Mediterranean galleys, of the English 
criminal in Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books of remem- 
brance in sweet far-ofi* England, of the bafiied penitent reverting 
his eyes forever upon a solitary grave, which to him seems the 
altar overthrown of some past and bloody sacrifice, on which 
altar no oblations can now be availing, whether towards pardon 
that he might implore, or towards reparation that he might 
attempt. Every slave that at noonday looks up to the trojDical 
sun with timid reproach, as he points with one hand to the earth, 
our general mother, but for him a stepmother; as he points with 
the other hand to the Bible, our general teacher, but against him 
sealed and sequestered ; ' every woman sitting in darkness, without 
love to shelter her head, or hope to illumine her solitude, because 
the heaven-born instincts kindling in her nature germs of holy 
affections, which God implanted in her womanly bosom, having 
been stifled by social necessities, now burn sullenly to waste, like 
sepulchral lamps amongst the ancients ; every nun defrauded of 
her unreturning May-time by wicked kinsmen, whom God will 
judge; every captive in every dungeon; all that are betrayed, 
and all that are rejected ; outcasts by traditionary law, and chil- 
dren of hereditary disgrace, — all these walk with Our Lady of 
Sighs. She also carries a key ; but she needs it little. For her 
kingdom is chiefly amongst the tents of Shem and the houseless 
vagrant of every clime. Yet in the very highest ranks of man 
she finds chapels of her own ; and even in glorious England there 
are some that, to the world, carry their heads as proudly as the 
reindeer, who yet secretly have received her mark upon their 
foreheads. 

But the third sister, who is also the youngest ! Hush ! 



1 " This, the reader will be aware, applies 
chiefly to the cotton aud tobacco States of 
North America; but not to them only: on 
which account I have not scrupled to figure 



the snn, which looks' down upon slavery, as 
tropical; no matter if strictly within the 
tropics, or simidy so near to them as to pro- 
duce a similar climate."— De Quincey. 



DE QUINCE Y. 549 

whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large, or 
else no flesh should live ; but within that kingdom all power is 
hers. Her head, turreted like that of Cybele, rises almost beyond 
the reach of sight. She droops not, and her eyes rising so high 
might be hidden by distance. But, being what they are, they 
cannot be hidden: through the treble veil of crape which she 
wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for 
matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebb- 
ing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground. She 
is the defier of God. She also is the mother of lunacies, and the 
suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power; but 
narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can approach only 
those in whom a profound nature has been upheaved by central 
convulsions; in whom the heart trembles and the brain rocks 
under conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from 
within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but 
still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps timidly and 
stealthily. But this youngest sister moves with incalculable 
motions, bounding, and with a tiger's leaps. She carries no key ; 
for, though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at 
which she is permitted to enter at all. And her name is Mater 
Tenehrarum, Our Lady of Darkness. 

LORD JiOSSE'S TELESCOPE. 

Lord Rosse may say, even if to-day he should die, "I found 
God's universe represented for human convenience, even after all 
the sublime discoveries of Herschel, upon a globe or spherical 
chart having a radius of one hundred and fifty feet ; and I left 
it sketched upon a similar chart, keeping exactly the same scale 
of proportions, but now elongating its radius into one thousand 
feet." 

Great is the mystery of space, greater is the mystery of time. 
Either mystery grows upon man, as man himself grows ; and 
either seems to be a function of the Godlike which is in man. 
In reality, the depths and the heights which are in man — the 
depths by which he searches, the heights by which he aspires — 
are but projected and made objective externally in the three 
dimensions of space which are outside of him. He trembles at 
the abyss into wdiich his bodily eyes look down, or look up ; not 
knowing that abyss to be, not always consciously suspecting it to 
be, but by an instinct WTitten in his prophetic heart feeling it to 
be, boding it to be, fearing it to be, and sometimes hoping it to 
be, the mirror to a mightier abyss that will one day be expanded 
in himself Even as to the sense of space, which is the lesser 
mystery than time, I know not whether the reader has remarked 
that it is one which swells upon man with the expansion of his 



550 DE QUINCEY. 

mind, and that it is probably peculiar to the mind of man. An 
infant of a year old, or oftentimes even older, takes no notice of 
a sound, however loud, which is a quarter of a mile removed, or 
even in a distant chamber ; and brutes, even of the most enlarged 
capacities, seem not to have any commerce with distance: dis- 
tance is probably not revealed to them, except indirectly. * * * 
To man is as much reserved the prerogative of perceiving space 
in its higher extensions, as of geometrically constructing the 
relations of space ; and the brute is no more capable of appre- 
hending abysses through his eye than he can build upwards or 
can analyze downwards the aerial synthesis of geometry. Such, 
therefore, as is space for the grandeur of man's perceptions, such 
as is space for the benefit of man's towering mathematic specu- 
lations, such, i. e. of that nature, is our debt to Lord Rosse, as 
being the philosopher who has most pushed back the frontiers of 
our conquests upon this exclusive inheritance of man. We have 
all heard of a king that, sitting on the seashore, bade the waves, 
as they began to lave his feet, upon their allegiance to retire. 
That was said not vainly or presumptuously, but in reproof of 
sycophantic courtiers. Now, however, we see in good earnest 
another man, Avielding another kind of sceptre, and sitting en- 
throned upon the shores of infinity, that says to the ice which 
had frozen up our progress, " Melt thou before my breath !" that 
says to the rebellious nebulce, "Submit, and burst into blazing 
worlds !" that says to the gates of darkness, " Roll back, ye bar- 
riers, and no longer hide from us the infinities of God !" 

SCRIPTURE TEACHING. 

The great ideas of the Bible protect themselves. The heavenly 
truths, by their own imperishableness, defeat the mortality of 
languages with which for a moment they are associated. Is the 
lightning dimmed or emasculated, because for thousands of years 
it has blended with the tarnish of earth and the steams of earthly 
graves ? Or light, which so long has travelled in the chambers 
of our sickly air, and searched the haunts of impurity, — is that 
less pure than it was in the first chapter of Genesis? * * * AH 
Scriptural truths reverberate and difilise themselves along the 
pages of the Bible ; none is confined to one text, or to one mode 
of enunciation; all parts of the scheme are eternally chasing 
each other, like the parts of a fugue; they hide themselves in 
one chapter, only to restore themselves in another ; they diverge, 
only to recombine ; and under such a vast variety of expressions 
that even in that w^ay, supposing language to have powers over 
religious truth, — which it never had or can have, — any abuse of 
such a power would be thoroughly neutralized. The case re- 
sembles the difiusion of vegetable seeds through the air and 
through the waters ; -draw a cordon sa7iitaire against dandelion or 



DE QUINCE Y. 551 

tliistledown, and see if the armies of earth would suffice to in- 
terrupt this process of radiation, which yet is the distribution of 
weeds. Suppose, for instance, the text about the three heavenly 
witnesses^ to have been eliminated finally as an interpolation. 
The first thought is, — there goes to wreck a great doctrine ! Not 
at all. That text occupied but a corner of the garden. The 
truth and the secret implications of the truth have escaped at a 
thousand points in vast arches above our heads, rising high above 
the garden-wall, and have sown the earth with memorials of the 
mystery which they envelope. 

The final inference is this, that Scriptural truth is endowed 
with a self-conservative and a self-restorative virtue ; it needs no 
long successions of verbal protection by inspiration; it is self- 
protected : first, internally, by the complex power which belongs 
to the Christian system of involving its own integrations, in the 
same way as a musical chord involves its own successions of 
sound and its own technical resolutions; secondly, in an external 
and obvious way, it is protected by its prodigious iteration and 
secret presupposed in all varieties of form. Consequently, as the 
peril connected with language is thus effectually neutralized, the 
call for any verbal inspiration (which, on separate grounds, appears 
to be self-confounding) shows itself now, in a second form, to be a 
gratuitous and superfluous delusion, since, in effect, it is a call for 
protection against a danger which cannot have any existence. * * * 
It is no business of the Bible, we are told, to teach science. Cer- 
tainly not; but that is far too little. It is an obligation resting 
upon the Bible, if it is to be consistent with itself, that it should 
refuse to teach science ; and if the Bible ever had taught any one 
art, science, or process of life, capital doubts would have clouded 
our confidence in the authority of the book. By what caprice, 
it would have been asked, is a divine mission abandoned suddenly 
for a human mission? By what caprice is this one science taught, 
and others not? Or these two, suppose, and not all? But an 
objection even deadlier would have followed. It is as clear as 
the purpose of daylight that the whole body of the arts and 
sciences composes one vast machinery for irritation and develop- 
ment of the human intellect. For this end they exist. To see 
God, therefore, descending into the arena of science, and con- 
tending, as it were, for His own prizes by teaching science in the 
Bible, would be to see Him intercepting from their self-evident 
destination (viz. : man's intellectual benefit) His own problems by 
solving them himself. No spectacle could more dishonor the 
divine idea, — could more injure man under the mask of aiding 
him. The Bible must not teach any thing that man can teach 
himself. 

1 1 John T. 7. 



552 MACAULAY. 



TH031AS BASING TON 3IACAULAY, 1800-1859. 

Distinguished as a descriptive poet by his fine Lays of Ancient Borne, and 
yet more distinguished as a master of English prose by his Sssai/s and his 
noble History of England, Thomas Babington Macaulay stands prominent as 
the most learned and eloquent of the essayists and critics of the nineteenth 
century. He was the son of Zachary Macaulay, known as the warm friend and 
co-laborer of Wilberforce and Clarkson, and was born at Kothley Temple, Lei- 
cestershire, October 25, 1800. In 1818 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 
where he took his degree in 1822. Here he gave proof of his great intellectual 
powers, obtaining a scholarship, and twice gaining the Chancellor's medal for 
a poem called Pompeii. To crown his triumphs, he secured a " Craven Scholar- 
ship," — the highest distinction in classics which the university confers. 

After leaving the university he studied law at Lincoln's Inn, and was called 
to the bar in 1826. It was in this year that his celebrated Essay on Milton ap- 
peared in the Edinburgh Review ; and thenceforth he contributed to that journal, 
from time to time, papers of such learning, eloquence, and power as to place 
him in the very first rank of reviewers. His Essays from the Edinburgh JRevieto 
have been collected and published in three volumes, and have attained a 
popularity far greater than any other contributions to the periodical works of 
the day. 

In politics he esj)oused the "Whig side, and was an able defender of their 
views. He was elected a member for Colne, of the first reformed Parliament, 
in 1830, was then made Secretary to the India Board, and in 1834 was re- 
turned as member for Leeds. He resigned his seat the same year, on being 
appointed to the Supreme Council in Calcutta, under the East India Company's 
new charter. His principal business was the preparation of a new penal code 
of Indian law, the formation of which led him to the investigation of Indian 
history, — a study which bore fine fruit in his essays on Lo7'd Clive and Wa7'7'en 
Hastings. He returned to England in 1838, with a high reputation for having 
administered his office in India with great justice and impartiality between 
the Europeans and the natives, as well as with great ability. The following 
3'ear he was elected member of Parliament for Edinburgh, and took a leading 
position among the orators of that renowned assembly. Within a few years 
he Avas elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and his address on 
the occasion was greatly admired. 

A distinguished French scholar, M. Mignet, of the French Academy, thus 
writes of Macaulay 's History of England: — "In this fine history, which is epic 
in movement and resplendent in form, Macaulay sees through the tangle of 
events with a piercing eye, exposes them with consummate ability, and judges 
them as an able politician. His narrations carry you away by the life which 
he throws into them. He gives animation to every thing that he relates, and 
to the knowledge which gives accuracy he unites the art that makes interest- 
ing. He enables the reader to appreciate as well as to know; and, as a rule, 
his justice is equal to his clear-sightedness." 

As a poet, Macaulay is not so much known or admired, not because his 
Armada, his Battle of Ivry, and his Lays of Ancient Rome are not worthy of his 
genius, — for, had he written nothing else, he would be remembered for these,— 
but because their lustre fades away before the exceeding brilliancy of his prose 



MACAULAY, 553 

writings.! Here he is unrivalled. His reading and erudition are immense. In 
questions of classical learning and criticism, in English poetry, philosophy, 
and history, in all the minutioa of biography and literary anecdote, in tho 
principles and details of government, in the revolutions of parties and opinions, 
in the progress of science and philosophy, — in all these he seems equally conver- 
sant and equally felicitous as a critic. Perhaps he is most striking and original 
in his historical articles, which present complete pictures of the times of which 
he treats, adorned with portraits of the principal actors, and copious illustra- 
tions of contemporary events and characters in other countries. His reviews 
of Hallam's Constitutional History, and the memoirs of Lord Clive, "Warren 
Hastings, Sir Eobert Walpole, Sir William Temple, Sir "Walter Ealeigh, &c., 
contain a series of brilliant and copious historical retrospects unequalled in our 
literature. His eloquent papers on Lord Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne, Horace 
"Walpole's Letters, Boswell's Johnson, Addison's Memoirs, and other philo- 
sophical and literary subjects, are also of first-rate excellence. "Whatever topic 
he takes up he fairly exhausts: nothing is left to the imagination, and the 
most ample curiosity is gratified. 

But Macaulay's greatest work is his History of England from the Accession of 
James the Second, than which no other book of this century has been received 
with equal enthusiasm, and no one, certainly, is more secure of lasting fame.^ 
The plan was a great one. "I propose to write the History of England from 
the accession of King James the Second down to a time within the memory of 
men still living," are the opening words of the opening chapter. It is what a 
history ought to be, — a history of the people. It is written in a style of great 
clearness, force, and eloquence; and the scenes he describes he places, by the 
vividness of his pencil, directly before your eyes. You see them and feel 
them too. The third chapter of this great work, wherein he describes the 
advance of the people, for the last three centuries, from ignorance to know- 
ledge, from barbarism to civilization, from serfdom to freedom, should be read 
by all, — especially by those elderly gentlemen whose chief delight is to praise 
the "good old times." This history, however, noble as it is, must be considered 
only as a fragment. It was brought down only to the death of "William the 
Third, as the illustrious author was removed by death on the 28th of Decem- 
ber, 1859.3 

1 Nerissa. — When the moon shone, we did not see the candle. 
Portia. — So doth the greater glory dim the less : 
A substitute shines brightly as a king, 
Until a king be by; and then his state 
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook 
Into the main of waters. 

Merchant of Venice, Act v. Scene 1. 



2 "With all its great merits, it has its imper- 
fections, of course, as its author was subject 
to like passions and infirmities with other 
men. He has been accused of partiality and 
exaggeration, and of gratifying his passion for 
epigram at the expense of truth; and it must 
be acknowledged that his views are some- 
times biassed (and whose are not?) by per- 
sonal antipathies : such as his description of 
Scotland ; his account of the massacre of Glen- 
coe; his delineation of the character of the 
English Puritans and the Scotch Covenant- 
ers ; and especially his portraiture of William 
Penn. The other side may be examined in 
William Hepworth Dixon's Life of William 

47 



Penn, with a Reply to Macaulay's Charges; in 
the searching inquiry into the Charges brought 
by Lord Macaulay against William Penn, hy 
John Paget, Barrister at Law; and in Hugh 
Miller's Reply in behalf of the Puritans and 
Covenanters. Read, also, a fine article on Ma- 
caulay, in Whipple's Essays; and in North 
British Reinew, Nos. 49 and 66. 

3 " I believe Macaulay to be incorruptible. 
You might lay ribbons, stars, garters, wealth, 
titles, before him in vain. He has an honest, 
genuine love of his country; and the world 
could not bribe him to neglect her interests." 
— Si''j>Ni;Y Smith. 



654 MA CAUL AY. 

HILTON. 

It is not our intention to attempt any thing like a complete 
examination of the poetry of Milton. The public has long been 
agreed as to the merit of the most remarkable passages, the in- 
comparable harmony of the numbers, and the excellence of that 
style which no rival has been able to equal, and no parodist to 
degrade ; which displays in their highest perfection the idiomatic 
powers of the English tongue, and to which every ancient and 
every modern language has contributed something of grace, of 
energy, or of music. In the vast field of criticism in which we 
are entering, innumerable reapers have already put their sickles. 
Yet the harvest is so abundant that the negligent search of a 
straggling gleaner may be rewarded with a sheaf 

The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton is the 
extreme remoteness of the associations by means of which it acts 
on the reader. Its effect is produced not so much by Avhat it 
expresses as by what it suggests ; not so much by the ideas which 
it directly conveys, as by other ideas which are connected with 
them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The most 
unimaginative man must understand the Iliad. Homer gives 
him no choice, and requires from him no exertion, but takes the 
whole upon himself, and sets his images in so clear a light that it 
is impossible to be blind to them. The works of Milton cannot 
be comprehended or enjoyed, unless the mind of the reader co- 
operate with that of the writer. He does not paint a finished 
picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and 
leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the key-note, and 
expects his hearer to make out the melody. * * * 

The character of Milton was peculiarly distinguished by lofti- 
ness of thought. He had survived his health and his sight, the 
comforts of his home and the prosperity of his party. Of the 
great men by whom he had been distinguished at his entrance 
into life, some had been taken away from the evil to come ; some 
had carried into foreign climates their unconquerable hatred of 
oppression ; some were pining in dungeons ; and some had poured 
forth their blood on scaffolds. That hateful proscription, face- 
tiously termed the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, had set a 
mark on the poor, blind, deserted poet, and held him up by name 
to the hatred of a profligate court and an inconstant people! 
Venal and licentious scribblers, with just sufficient talent to 
clothe the thoughts of a pander in the style of a bellman, were 
now the favorite writers of the sovereign and the public. It was 
a loathsome herd, — which could be compared to nothing so fitly 
as to the rabble of Comus, — grotesque monsters, half bestial, 
half human, dropping with wine, bloated with gluttony, and 
reeling in obscene dances. Amidst these his Muse was placed, 



MA CAUL AY. 555 

like the chaste lady of^the Masque, lofty, spotless, and serene, — 
to be chattered at, and ""pointed at, and grinned at, by the whole 
rabble of Satyrs and Goblins. If ever despondency and asperity 
could be excused in any man, it might have been excused in 
Milton. But the strength of his mind overcame every calamity. 
Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic 
afflictions, nor political disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscrip- 
tion, nor neglect, had power to disturb his sedate and majestic 
patience. His spirits do not seem to have been high, but they 
were singularly equable. His temper was serious, perhaps stern ; 
but it was a temper which no sufferings could render sullen or 
fretful. Such it was when, on the eve of great events, he returned 
from his travels, in the prime of health and manly beauty, loaded 
with literary distinctions, and glowing with patriotic hopes ; such 
it continued to be when, after having experienced every calamity 
which is incident to our nature, old, poor, sightless, and disgraced, 
he retired to his hovel to die i * * * 

His public conduct was such as was to be expected from a man 
of a spirit so high and an intellect so powerful. He lived at 
one of the most memorable eras in the history of mankind ; at 
the very crisis of the great conflict between Oromasdes and 
Arimanes, — liberty and despotism, reason and prejudice. That 
great battle was fought for no single generation, for no single 
land. The destinies of the human race were staked on the same 
cast with the freedom of the English people. Then were first 
proclaimed those mighty pHnciples which have since worked 
their way into the depths of the American forests ; which have 
roused Greece from the slavery and degradation of two thousand 
years ; and which, from one end of Europe to the other, have 
kindled an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed, and 
loosed the knees of the oppressors with a strange and unwonted 
fear j * * * 

We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear ourselves 
away from the subject. The days immediately following the 
publication of this relic of Milton^ appear to be peculiarly set 
apart and consecrated to his memory. And we shall scarcely be 
censured if, on this his festival, we be found lingering near his 
shrine, how worthless soever may be the offering which we bring 
to it. While this book lies on our table, we seem to be con- 
temporaries of the great poet. We are transported a hundred 
and fifty years back. We can almost fancy that we are visiting 
him in his small lodging ; that we see him sitting at the old 
organ beneath the faded green hangings ; that we can catch the 
quick twinkle of his eyes rolling in vain to find the day ; that we 
are reading in the lines of his noble countenance the proud and 

1 " A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone." 



556 MACAULAY. 

mournful history of his glory and his affliction ! We image to 
ourselves the breathless silence in which we should listen to his 
slightest word ; the passionate veneration with which we should 
kneel to kiss his hand, and weep upon it ; the earnestness with 
which we should endeavor to console him, if, indeed, such a spirit 
could need consolation, for the neglect of an age unworthy of his 
talents and his virtues ; the eagerness with which we should con- 
test with his daughters, or witli his Quaker friend, Elwood, the 
privilege of reading Homer to him, or of taking down tlie 
immortal accents which flowed from his lips. * * * 

There are a few characters which have stood the closest 
scrutiny and the severest tests, wliich have been tried in the 
furnace, and have proved pure, which have been weighed in the 
balance, and have not been found wanting, which have been de- 
clared sterling by the general consent of mankind, and which 
are visibly stamped with the image and superscription of the 
Most High. These great men we trust that we know how to 
prize; and of these was Milton. The sight of his books, the 
sound of his name, are refreshing to us. His thoughts resemble 
those celestial fruits and flowers which the Virgin Martyr of 
Massinger sent down from the gardens of Paradise to the earth, 
distinguished from the productions of other soils, not only by 
their superior bloom and sweetness, but by their miraculous effi- 
cacy to invigorate and to heal. They are powerful not only to 
delight, but to elevate and purify. Nor do we envy the man 
who can study either the life or the writings of the great poet 
and patriot without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime 
works with which his genius has enriched our literature, but the 
zeal with which he labored for the public good, the fortitude with 
which he endured every private calamity, the lofty disdain with 
which he looked down on temptation and dangers, the deadly 
hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which 
he so sternly kept with his country and with his fame. 

THE PURITANS. 

We would first speak of the Puritans, the most remarkable 
body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced. * * * 

Those who roused the people to resistance, — who directed their 
measures through a long series of eventful years, — who formed, 
out of the most unpromising materials, the finest army that 
Europe had ever seen, — who trampled down king, church, and 
aristocracy, — who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and 
rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on 
the face of the earth, — were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their 
absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of free- 
masonry or the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges 



MA CAUL AY. 657 

were not more attractive ; we regret that a body, to whose courage 
and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations, had not 
the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of 
Charles I., or the easy good breeding for which the court of 
Charles II. was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, 
we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious 
caskets which contain only the Death's head and the Fool's 
head, and fix our choice on the plain leaden chest which conceals 
the treasure. 

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar 
character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and 
eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general 
terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every 
event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing 
was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To 
know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great 
end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious 
homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the 
soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity 
through an obscuring vail, they aspired to gaze full on the in- 
tolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. 
Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The 
difference between the greatest and meanest of mankind seemed 
to vanish when compared with the boundless interval which 
separated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were 
constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his 
favor ; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accom- 
plishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were un- 
acquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were 
deeply read in the oracles of God ; if their names were not found 
in the registers of heralds, they felt assured that they were re- 
corded in the Book of Life ; if their steps were not accompanied 
by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had 
charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with 
hands ; their diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade 
away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they 
looked down with contempt ; for they esteemed themselves rich 
in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime lan- 
guage, — nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by 
the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them 
was a being to Avhose fate a mysterious and terrible importance 
belonged, — on whose slightest actions the spirits of light and 
darkness looked with anxious interest, — who had been destined, 
before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which 
should continue when heaven and earth should have passed 
away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly 
causes had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires 

47* 



558 MACAULAY. 

had risen and flourished and decayed ; for his sake the Almighty- 
had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist and the harp 
of the prophet. He had been rescued by no common deliverer 
from the grasp of no common foe ; he had been ransomed by the 
sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. 
It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks 
had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that all nature had 
shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God ! 

BUNYAiTS PILGUnrS PROGRESS. 

The characteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim's Progress is, that 
it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human 
interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The allegory 
of Bunyan has been read by many thousands Avith tears. There 
are some good allegories in Johnson's works, and some of still 
higher merit by Addison. In these performances there is, per- 
haps, as much wit and ingenuity as in the Pilgrim's Progress. 
But the pleasure which is produced by the Vision of Mirza, or 
the Vision of Theodore, the genealogy of Wit, or the contest be- 
tw^een Rest and Labor, is exactly similar to the pleasure which 
we derive from one of Cowley's Odes, or from a canto of Hudi- 
bras. It is a pleasure which belongs wholly to the understand- 
ing, and in which the feelings have no part whatever. Nay, 
even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets 
that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make alle- 
gory interesting. It was in vain that he lavished the riches of 
his mind on the " House of Pride" and the " House of Temper- 
ance." One unpardonable fault — the fault of tediousness — per- 
vades the whole of the Faery Queen. We become sick of Car- 
dinal Virtues and Deadly Sins, and long for the society of plain 
men and women. Of the persons who read the first canto, not 
one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a 
hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very 
weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. 
If the last six books, which are said to have been destroyed in 
Ireland, had been preserved, we doubt whether any heart less 
stout than that of a commentator would have held out to the 
end. 

It is not so with the Pilgrim's Progress. That wonderful book, 
while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is 
loved by those who are too simple to admire it. Doctor Johnson 
— all whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as he said, to 
read books through — made an exception in favor of the Pilgrim's 
Progress. That work, he said, was one of the two or three works 
which he wished longer. It was by no common merit that the 
illiterate sectary extracted praise like this from the most pedantic 



MA CAUL AY. 559 

of critics and the most bigoted of tories. In the wildest parts of 
Scotland the Pilgrim's Progress is the delight of the peasantry. 
In every nursery the Pilgrivi's Progress is a greater favorite 
than Jack the Giant-Killer. Every reader knows the straight 
and narrow path as well as he knows a road in which he has 
gone backward and forward a hundred times. This is the highest 
miracle of genius, — that things which are not should be as though 
they were ; that the imaginations of one mind should become the 
personal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker 
has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, 
no turnstile, with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The 
wicket gate and the desolate swamp which separates it from the 
City of Destruction ; the long line of road, as straight as a rule 
can make it ; the Interpreter's house and all its fair shows ; the 
prisoner in the iron cage ; the palace, at the doors of which 
armed men kept guard, and on the battlements of which walked 
persons clothed all in gold ; the cross and the sepulchre ; the 
steep hill and the pleasant arbor ; the stately front of the House 
Beautiful by the wayside ; the low green Valley of Humiliation, 
rich with grass and covered with flocks, — are all as well known 
to us as the sights of our own street. Then we come to the nar- 
row place where Apollyon strode right across the whole breadth 
of the way, to stop the journey of Christian, and where, after- 
wards, the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim 
had fought the good fight. As we advance, the valley becomes 
deeper and deeper. The shade of the precipices on both sides 
falls blacker and blacker. The clouds gather overhead. Dole- 
ful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet 
to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly 
discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, 
which sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous 
shapes, to terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes on, amidst the 
snares and pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who have 
perished lying in the ditch by his side. At the end of the long 
dark valley, he passes the dens in which the old giants dwelt, 
amidst the bones and ashes of those whom they had slain. ^ * * * 
The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invalu- 
able as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide com- 
mand over the English language. The vocabulary is the vocabu- 
lary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we 
except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle 
the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages which do 
not contain a single word of more than two syllables. Yet no 
writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For mag- 
nificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle dis- 
quisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, 
this homely dialect, the dialect of plain working-men, was per- 



660 



MA CAUL AY. 



fectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we 
could so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English 
language ; no book which shows so well how rich that language 
is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved 
by all that it has borrowed. 

Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name 
John Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. To our 
refined forefathers, we suppose Lord Koscommon's Essay on 
Translated Verse, and the Duke of Buckinghamshire's Essay on 
Poetry, appeared to be compositions infinitely superior to the 
allegory of the preaching tinker. We live in better times ; and 
we are not afraid to say that, though there were many clever 
men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, there were only two great creative minds. One of those 
minds produced the Paradise Lost; the other, the Pilgrim's 



EXECUTION OF JIOXJIOUTH.^—THE TO WEE OF LONDON. 

The hour drew near ; all hope was over ; and Monmouth had 
passed from pusillanimous fear to the apathy of despair. His 
children were brought to his room, that he might take leave of 
them, and were followed by his wife. He spoke to her kindly, 
but without emotion. Though she was a woman of great strength 
of mind, and had little cause to love him, her misery was such 
that none of the bystanders could refrain from weeping. He 
alone was unmoved. 

It was ten o'clock. The coach of the Lieutenant of the Tower 
was ready. Monmouth requested his spiritual advisers to accom- 
pany him to the place of execution, and they consented ; but 
they told him that, in their judgment, he was about to die in a 
perilous state of mind, and that, if they attended him, it would 
be their duty to exhort him to the last. As he passed along the 
ranks of the guards he saluted them with a smile, and mounted 
the scaflbld with a firm tread. Tower Hill was covered up to 
the chimney-tops with an innumerable multitude of gazers, who, 
in awful silence, broken only by sighs and the noise of w^eeping, 
listened for the last accents of the darling of the people. " I 
shall say little," he began. " I come here, not to speak, but to 
die. I die a Protestant of the Church of England." * * * 

In the mean time, many handkerchiefs were dipped in the 
Duke's blood ; for by a large part of the multitude he was re- 
garded as a martyr who had died for the Protestant religion. 



1 James, Duke of Monmouth, natural son of 
Charles II., was born at Rotterdam in 1649. 
When James II. ascended the throne, Mon- 
mouth rose in rebellion, and assumed the title 



of king. But his forces were defeated at the 
battle of Sedgemoor ; and he himself was taken 
prisoner and executed, 1685. 



MA CAUL AT. 



5G1 



The head and body were placed in a coffin covered with black 
velvet, and were laid privately under the communion-table of 
St. Peter's Chapel in the Tower.^ Within four years the pave« 
ment of the chancel was again disturbed, and hard by the re- 
mains of Monmouth were laid the remains of Jeffreys. In truth, 
there is no sadder spot on the earth than that little cemetery. 
Death is there associated, not, as in AVestminster Abbey and 
St. Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and 
with imperishable renown ; not, as in our humblest churches and 
churchyards, with every thing that is most endearing in social 
and domestic charities ; but with whatever is darkest in human 
nature and human destiny, — with the savage triumph of impla- 
cable enemies, — with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the coward- 
ice of friends, — with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of 
blighted fame. Thither have been carried, through successive 
ages, by the rude hands of jailers, without one mourner following, 
the bleeding relics of men who had been the captains of armies, 
the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and the ornaments 
of courts. Thither was borne, before the window where Jane 
Grey was praying, the mangled corpse of Guildford Dudley. 
Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Protector of the realm, 
reposes there by the brother whom he murdered. There has 
moldered away the headless trunk of John Fisher, Bishop of 
Rochester and Cardinal of St. Vitalis, a man worthy to have 
lived in a better age and to have died in a better cause. There 
are laid John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Lord High 
Admiral ; and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Lord High 
Treasurer. There too is another Essex, on wdiom nature and 
fortune had lavished all their bounties in vain, and whom valor, 
grace, genius, royal favor, popular applause, conducted to an 
early and ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two chiefs of the 
great house of Howard, — Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and 
Philip, eleventh Earl of Arundel. Here and there, among the 
thick graves of unquiet -and aspiring statesmen, lie more delicate 
sufferers ; Margaret of Salisbury, the last of the proud name of 
Plantagenet, and those two fair queens who perished by the 
jealous rage of Henry. Such was the dust with which the dust 
of Monmouth mingled. 

THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY.^ 

It is surely delightful, sir, to look forward to that period when 
a series of liberal and prudent measures shall have delivered 



Julius, London's lasting 



»"Ye Towers of 
shame, 

With many a foul and midnight murder fed.' 
Gray. 



2 From a speech delivered in Free Masons' 
JIall, London, .Tune 25, 1824, at a meeting of 
the Society for the Mitigation and Abolition 
of Slavery. 



562 MACAULAY. 

islands so highly favored by the bounty of Providence from the 
curse inflicted on them by the frantic rapacity of man. Then 
the peasant of the Antilles will no longer crawl in listless and 
trembling dejection around a plantation from whose fruits he 
must derive no advantage, and a hut whose door yields him no 
protection ; but wdien his cheerful and voluntary labor is com- 
pleted, he ^\i\\ return with the firm step and erect brow of a 
British citizen from the field, which is his freehold, to the house, 
which is his castle. Then those regions w^here civilization has 
displayed only its strength will exhibit also the fruits of its 
wisdom and its mercy, — arts, sciences, letters, equal laws, benevo- 
lent institutions, the temples of a pure religion, the marts of a 
legitimate commerce, tribunals where justice may be expected, 
even by a negro or a missionary, senates where liberal sentiments 
and decorous phraseology will have succeeded to the doctrines 
and language of buccaneers ! I cannot think these anticipations 
chimerical, when I reflect on the past condition of our own 
country, and on the interesting and pathetic event to which in a 
great measure it owes its present blessings. In an Italian slave- 
market a priest observed some children of exquisite beauty ex- 
posed for sale. He asked wdience they came : he was told from 
England. His heart burned within him; he pitied the misery 
and degradation of a distant people. As soon as he was raised 
to the papal throne, he instantly took measures for introducing 
into this island the Christian religion, and all the moral and 
political blessings by which that religion has ever been accom- 
panied. We are not exactly informed of the difiiculties which 
he had to encounter, but w'e knoAV that in every age human 
nature is the same ; that in every age it is through hatred and 
obloquy that the path lies to virtue and to glory. There were 
probably grave statesmen to suggest that the work of ameliora- 
tion had better be left to the Wittenagemotes of the Heptarchy. 
No doubt there were slaveholders who protested that their slaves 
fared more sumptuously than the King of the Lombards. The 
statue of Pasquin was not then standing in Pome; but then, 
doubtless, there w^ere not wanting wits to deride his enthusiasm, 
and liars to asperse his character. It is not impossible that there 
may have been found rufiians to pull down his chapels, and for- 
sworn judges to send his missionaries to the gallows. However 
this may have been, we know that he persevered. And now look 
at the result ! Now look at the miserable, the degraded country, 
the land of the oppressor and the oppressed. There is freedom 
in the respiration of its air, and in the very contact of its soil. 
Now look at that ocean which then bore to our coast nothing but 
plunderers, and carried back from it nothing but cargoes of 
misery and despair. That very ocean now rolls around us, at 
once to enrich and to defend, — at once renders our coast every- 



MA CAUL AY. 563 

where accessible to commerce and everywhere impervious to war. 
Look at our maritime power, at our commercial opulence, at our 
martial glory, at the proud list of our great men, and then 
reflect from what we were raised, and by what means. These 
things should inspire us with hope, and not with hope alone. 
Do we owe so many blessings to the generosity of an ignorant 
priest in a dark age and a distant country? And shall not we, 
who live in the full blaze of morals and intellect, exert ourselves 
for the Avelfare of those over whose fate we possess an irresistible 
control, and in whose wrongs we have most deeply participated ? 

THE EMPIRE THAT IS LASTING.^ 

Are we, sir, to keep the people of India ignorant, in order that 
we may keep them submissive? Or do we think that we can 
give them knowledge without awakening ambition? Or do Ave 
mean to awaken ambition, and to provide it with no legitimate 
vent? Who will answer any of these questions in the affirmative? 
Yet one of them must be answered in the affirmative by every 
person who maintains that we ought permanently to exclude the 
natives from high office. I have no fears. The path of duty is 
plain before us ; and it is also the path of wisdom, of national 
prosperity and of national honor. 

The destinies of our Indian empire are covered with thick 
darkness. It is difficult to form any conjecture as to the fate 
reserved for a state which resembles no other in history, and 
which forms by itself a separate class of political phenomena. 
The lavvs which regulate its growth and its decay are still un- 
known to us. It may be that the public mind of India may 
expand under our system till it has outgrown that system ; that 
by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity 
for better government; that, having become instructed in Eu- 
ropean knowledge, they may, in some future age, demand Eu- 
ropean institutions. Whether such a day will ever come, I know 
not. But never will I attempt to avert or to retard it. When- 
ever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English history. 
To have found a great people sunk in the lowest depths of 
slavery and of superstition, to have so ruled them as to have 
.made them desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens, 
would indeed be a title to glory all our own. The sceptre may 
pass away from us. Unforeseen accidents may derange our most 
profound schemes of policy. Victory may be inconstant to our 
arms ; but there are triumphs which are followed by no reverses. 
There is an empire exempt from all natural causes of decay. 



1 From his speech delivered July 10, 1833, on the second reading of the East India Company's 
Charter Bill. 



564 MACAULAY. 

These triumphs are the pacific triumphs of reason over barbarism ; 
that empire is the imperishable empire of our arts and our morals, 
our literature and our laws. 



INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH OF R03IE. 

From the time when the barbarians overran the Western 
Empire to the time of the revival of letters, the influence of the 
Church of Rome had been generally favorable to science, to 
civilization, and to government. But during the last three centu- 
ries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief 
object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been 
made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, 
has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse 
proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces 
of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in politi- 
cal servitude, and in intellectual torpor ; while Protestant coun- 
tries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been 
turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a 
long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Who- 
ever, knowing Avhat Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, 
four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now compare 
the country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will 
be able to form some judgment as to the tendency of Papal 
dominion. The descent of Spain, once the first among monar- 
chies, to the lowest depths of degradation ; the elevation of Hol- 
land, in spite of many natural disadvantages, to a position such 
as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach the same 
lesson. AVhoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to 
a Protestant principality ; in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic 
to a Protestant Canton ; in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a 
Protestant county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a 
higher grade of civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic 
the same law prevails. The Protestants of the United States 
have left far behind them the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, 
and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Low^er Canada remain 
inert, while the whole continent round them is in a ferment with 
Protestant activity and enterprise. The French have doubtless 
shown an energy and an intelligence which, even when mis- 
directed, have justly entitled them to be called a great people. 
But this apparent exception, when examined, will be found to 
confirm the rule ; for in no country that is called Roman Catholic 
has the Roman Catholic Church, during several generations, 
possessed so little authority as in France. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



565 



SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS 
OR FROM 1850 TO 1859 INCLUSIVE. 



olnstfcCj J^osep/f, Selections from the Choric Poetry of the Oreek Dramatic 
}Vriter{^, trandated into English Verse,^ — altogether the most beautiful and 
faithful translations I have ever seen. He lias also written some fine 
sacred lyrics, two of which may be found in Sir Eoundell Palmer's Book 
of Praise. 

Beckett, Gilbert A^bhott a (1810-1856), of London. A police magis- 
trate; writer of numerous Plays; also Comic Blackstone, and Comic His- 
tories of England and Rome. 

'Bickerstei?i, £'dit^ard (1786-1850), Kector of Walton, a voluminous 
religious writer. The Scripture Help, a practical introduction to the 
Scriptures ; The Christian Student; A Practical Guide to the Prophecies, &c. 

^innilejy, George (1819-1857), Cambridge; librarian of Trinity College. 
Essays in the Spectator and Eraser.^ 

^rown, J^o?in (1785-1859), minister of the United Presbyterian Church 
in Edinburgh, grandson of the celebrated John Brown of Hadding- 
ton (1722-1787), author of the Self- Interpreting Bible. The grandson is 
widely known for his scholarly Expository Discourses on the Epistles of 
Peter, on the Epistle to the Galatians, and on the Epistle to the Romans. 

Buckingham, J^. Silk (1786-1855), a traveller. In 1827 appeared 
Travels in Palestine; Travels among the Arab Tribes; and Travels in Meso- 
potamia. Subsequently he came to this country, and gave lectures in our 
principal cities, which were very fully attended, — for a more pleasing 
conversational lecturer could hardly be named. On his return home he 
published America, Historical, Statistical, and Descriptive. In 1842 ap- 
peared two additional volumes, describing his tour in the Slave States. 

:Sitckla7id, William (1784-1856), Dean of Westminster. One of the 
Bridgewater Treatises^ on Geology and Mineralogy in Reference to Natural 
Theology. 



1 See some of these in the Compendium of 
Claxaical Literature. I can find no notice of 
his life anywhere. The Choric Poetry was pub- 
lished in 1832, and the hymns above men- 
tioned in 1836. 

2 These Essays were edited and published by 
his friend, William George Clark, M.A., in 1860. 
The chief of them are on Tennyson's Poems, 
Wordsworth, Poetry and Criticism, Carlylc's 
Life of Sterling, Wilson's Noctes Ambrosianse, 
the Bleak House of Dickens, &c. They are all 
■written in fine taste and with nice discrimina- 
tion. 

8 The Earl of Bridgewater (1758-1820') be- 
queathed a sum of £8000 to be paid (£1000 
each) to eii^ht persons. a]ii)ointcd by the I'resi- 
dent of the Royal Society, to write and pub- 



lish works upon the Power, Wisdom, and 
Goodness of God as manifested in the crea- 
tion. Besides the £1000, each writer was to 
have the copyright of his own work. These 
are — 1. The Adaptation of External Nature to 
tJie Moral and IntcUectuai Constitution of Man, 
by Thomas Chalmers, D.D.; 2. Chemistry, 
Meteorology, and the Functions of Digestion, 
considered with Reference to Natural Tl^eology, 
by William Prout, M.D.; 3. On the History, 
Habits, and Instinct of Animals, by Rev. Wil- 
liam Kirby; 4. On Geology and Mineralogy, 
by William Buckland, D.D.; 5. The Hand, its 
Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as evincing 
Design, by Sir Charles Bell; 6. The Adaptation 
of External Nature to the Physical Condition 
of Man, by John Kidd, M.D.; 7. Astronomy 



566 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



Cockhurny JIe7i7y {.Lord) (1779-1854), a Scottish judge. Memoriah of 
his Time, or sketches of the public character and social habits of the 
leading citizens of Edinburgh for the first quarter of the present century. 

Combe, Geo7^ge (1788-1858), was an Edinburgh writer to the signet, and 
known for his writings on Phrenology. His principal works are Essays 
on Phrenology, 1819; The Constitution of Man, 1828; System of Phrenology, 
1836. He travelled and lectured in our country, and in 1841 published 
Notes on the United States of America, three volumes. 

Crokcr, Jb/in lVllso7i (1780-1857), of Galway, Ireland, Secretary to the 
Admiralty. One of the original corps of the Quarterly Review; edited 
BosweWs Life of Johnson, and Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Court of George 
IL At the time of his death he was engaged upon an edition of Pope's 
works. 

jEJgert07t, I^ra7iciSj Earl of Ellesmere (1800-1857) : translator of Goethe's 
Faust and Schiller's Song of the Bell, and published a volume of graceful 
original poems. He was a munificent patron of the arts. 

J^errier, Mary (1782-1854), novelist, of Edinburgh. Authoress of Mar- 
riage, published 1818; The Inheritance, 1824; and Destiny, or the Chiefs 
Daughter, 1831. 

J^ord, 'R)c?iard (1796-1858), wrote Murray's Hand-Booh for Spain, and 
also Gatherings from Spain, which together form the best authority we 
have on the modern condition of that romantic land. 

j^raser, J^ames ^Salllle (1783-1856), of Scotland, traveller. The Kuz- 
zilbash, a Tale of Khorassan; The Persian Adventurer. 

Gilfillanf ^oberi (1798-1850), of Scotland. Poems and Songs, which 
have passed through many editions. 

Sctmilton, Sir WllUain (1788-1856), the most profound metaphysical 
philosopher of the nineteenth century, — a man of immense erudition and 
attainments. He was distinguished for the extent and accuracy of his 
knowledge even during his academical career at Oxford. In 1821 he 
was appointed Professor of Universal History in the University of Edin- 
burgh, and in 1836, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics. His Essays 
from the Edinburgh Review, and his edition of Dr. Reid's Works, were pub- 
lished during his lifetime. After his death appeared his Lectures, in four 
volumes, edited by Dr. Mansel, of Oxford, and Professor Veitch, of St, 
Andrew's.^ 

JServey, Xhomas H^ibble (1804-1859), of Manchester, editor of the 
Athemzum. Australia, and other Poems, 1824; The Poetical Sketch-Book, 
1829 ; Illustrations of Modern Sculpture, 1832 ; England's Helicon, 1841, &c. 

Ja^nes, 'Rev. J^oh^i Angelt (1785-1859), an " Independent" clergyman 
of Birmingham, an able and voluminous writer on religious subjects. 
The Anxious Inquirer, The Young Man's Guide, Lectures on the Book of 
Revelation, &c. &c., — in all, about thirty volumes. 



and General Physics, considered with Reference 
to Natural Theology, by Rev. William Whewell ; 
8. Animal and Vegetable Physiology, considered 
with Reference to Natural Theology, by Peter 
Mark Roget, M.D. All these are republished 
in Bohn's Library. 

1 " In his union of powerful thinking with 
profound and varied erudition, Sir William 
Hamilton stands higher, perhaps, than any 



other man whose name is preserved in the 
annals of modern speculation." — Spalding. 

" His writings evince more intense strength 
of understanding than any other of the age; 
and in the blended merits of their logic, 
rhetoric, and learning, they may challenge 
comparison with the best works of any British 
metaphysicians." — Whipple's Essays, ii. p. 117. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 667 

£^ltto, Jb/in (1804-1854), an industrious writer on biblical subjects. In 
his twelfth year made deaf for life by a fall. The Pictorial Bible, 1838, 
very valuable ; Pictorial History of Palestine; The Lost Senses, — Deafness 
and Blindness ; Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature; Daily Bible Readings. 

J^ardner, Dionj'suis, LL.D. (1793-1859), a distinguished writer on 
physical science, born in Dublin. Hand-Books of Natural Philosophy and 
Astronomy, four volumes ; Museum of Science and Art ; edition of Euclid. 
In 1830 he projected a sort of encyclopffidia, consisting of original treatises, 
by the most eminent authors, upon History, Science, Economics, &c. ; 
published under the name of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopmdia. 

Lee, Jlai'rlei (176G-1851), of Bristol. The Canterbury Tales, a series of 
romantic fictions : The New Peerage, and The Three Strangers, dramas. 

Z/ingard, John (1771-1851), historian. History of England, 8 volumes, 
from the invasion of the Eomans to the abdication of James II., 1688. 
He w^as a " Roman Catholic" priest, and, of course, discussed the Re- 
formation and kindred subjects from a hostile point of view ; but, making 
this allowance, his History is a calm and learned narrative, and especially 
valuable in those chapters which deal with the Anglo-Saxons and their 
life. He also wrote The Antiquities of the Saxon Church, 2 volumes. 

JjOck?iart, Jb/in Gibson (1794-1854), of Lanarkshire, Scotland, for 
many years one of the chief supporters of Blackwood's Magazine, and 
editor of the Quarterly Review from 1826 till a short time before his 
death ; author of Valerius, a tale of Trajan's time ; Reginald Dalton, an 
English story ; and of Ancient Spanish Ballads. But he is best known as 
the biographer of his father-in-law. Sir Walter Scott. The diary and 
letters of Scott are in this work interwoven with the story of his life, in 
that finished, graceful style of which Lockhart was a thorough master. 

JjUttrelt, £[e7iry (1770-1851). Advice to Julia, a poem; A Letter in 
Rhyme; Crockford House. He was a favorite in the circle of "Holland 
House;" and the poet Rogers speaks highly of his conversational 
powers. 

Malthy, £Jdwa7'd (1770-1856), Bishop of Chichester and Durham. 
Illustrations of the Truth of the Christian Religion; several volumes of 
Sermons. 

Mantell, Gideo7i Alr/ernon (1788-1852), an English physician. The 

Fossils of the South Downs, 1822; Wonders of Geology, 1833, — "perhaps 
the most popular geological work ever written by an Englishman;" 
Medals of Creation, or First Lessons in Geology, 1844. 

Maxwell, Williain JI. (died 1850), captain in the array ; novelist and 
historian. Stories of Waterloo; Wild iSports of the West; Hector C Hallo- 
ran; Adventures of Captain Blake, &c. 

Mftford, Mmy "Rttssell (1789-1855), novelist. Our Village, 1824; 
Bedford Regis, 1835; Atherton, and other Tales, 1854, &c. Of lier dra- 
matic works the most important were — Julian, first performed in 1823; 
Foscari, 1826 ; Rienzi, 1828. But she is most known and probably most 
valued for her charming work. Recollections of a Literary Life, or Books, 
Places, and People, published in 1851, in three volumes. It is filled with 
just and beautiful thoughts upon some of the first authors in our lan- 
guage, both English and American, and with selections from their works. 

JiTltfo7'd, ^ev. Jo?i7i (1782-1859), a profound and varied scholar, for- 
merly an editor of the GentlemarH s Magazine. Works of Gray, with a Me- 
moir, 1814 ; Editor of Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Butler, Prior, Swift, Young, 



568 SUPPLEMENTAR Y A UTHORS. 

Parnell, Goldsmith, and Falconer, with Memoirs, for the AlcUne Poets; 
Life of Milton; Miscellaneous Poems, &c. 

Mbnigomery , ^ev. ^oberi (1807-1855), mhiister of Percy Street Epis- 
copal Chapel, London, and an author of several volumes of poetry, which 
is now but little read, though very popular in its day. His Omnipresence 
of the Deity (1828) passed through twenty-six editions. In the April 
number (1830) of the Edinburgh is a review — altogether too severe — of 
his poems, by Macaulay. 

J^forga7i, J^ady (1781-1859), novelist, of Dublin, whose maiden name 
was Sydney Owenson, was married to Sir Charles Morgan, M.D. 
Works: The Lay of the L^ish Harp, 1801, in which is the popular song 
of Kate Kearney; The Wild L'ish Girl; O'Donnell, a National Tale, 
1814; Florence Macarthy, an Irish Tale, 1818; The (yBriens and the 
C Flaherty s, 1827, &c. But all her works are now little read or 
known. 

Tarrjf, Edward, Bart. (1790-1855), traveller. First, Second, and Third 
Journals of a Voyage to Discover a Northwest Passage, 1817-1S26. Captain 
Parry has handed down an undying name for hardy and successful en- 
terprise. 

Phillips, Samuel (1815-1854), London. Literary Essays in the Times; 
Caleb Stukeley, a novel. His Essays have been published in two volumes. 

^07^ter, J^ane (1776-1850), novelist, sister of Anna Maria. Two romances, 
Thaddem of Warsaw, 1803, and The Scottish Chiefs, 1810, both once highly 
popular. 

^eac?ty ^ngtis 'Sethune (1821-1856), Inverness ; reporter and critic in 
the Morning Chronicle. Clement Lorimer,sind Leonard Lindsay, novels; 
The Natu7xil Llistory of Bores and Humbugs; The Comic Bradshaw; Claret 
and Olives, from the Garonne to the Phone. 

Shelley, Ma?^y (1797-1851), novelist ; Miss Godwin, — afterwards the poet's 
second wife. Frankenstein, 1817 ; after the death of her husband she 
produced Valpergor; The Last Man; The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, 
and other works of fiction ; and also edited and wrote prefaces to her hus- 
band's Poetical Works, and edited his Essays, Letters from Abroad, Trans- 
lations and Fragments, 1840. 

Ifat^burtoii, £Jlwt (1810-1852), traveller, novelist, and historical writer. 
The Crescent and the Cross, or Romance and Realities of Eastern Travel; 
Hochelaga (an Indian name for Canada), or England in the New World; 
Reginald Hastings, and Darien, novels; Memoir of the Earl of Peter- 
borough. 

7t^a?'dlaw, 'jRalp?i (1779-1853), Independent minister at Glasgow. Dis- 
courses on the Socinian Controversy, in answer to Mr. Yates, the Unitarian 
minister at Glasgow; Eight Lectures in Defence of Congregationalism.; 
Unitarianism incapcLble of Vindication; Congregational Lidependency {in 
contradistinction to Episcopacy and Presbyterianism) the Church Polity of the 
New Testament; and numerous other able theological works. 

Wilson, George (1818-1859), Edinburgh ; chemist and lecturer. Lives of 
John Reid, and Henry Cavendish; Five Gateways of Knoivledge (popular 
science) ; Life of Sir Edward Forbes (the eminent naturalist, 1815-1854), 
completed by Geikie. 



ANNA JAMESON. 



569 



^(JtKJnth i^rad^. 



ANNA JAMESON, 1796-1860. 

ISo work pretending to give an account of the prominent English authors of 
the nineteenth century would be complete without the name of this charming 
and instructive writer.^ Accident, she says, made her an author; aiid she 
thus expounds some of 

HER AIMS IN WRITING. 

It is not by exposing folly and scorning fools that we make 
other people wiser or ourselves happier. But to soften the heart 
by images and examples of the kindly and generous affections, — 
to show how the human soul is disciplined and perfected by suffer- 
ing, — to prove how much of possible good may exist in things 
evil and perverted, — how much hope there is for those who de- 
spair, — how much comfort for those whom a heartless world has 
taught to contemn both others and themselves, and to put bar- 
riers to the hard, cold, selfish, mocking, and levelling spirit of 
the day. 



This high and noble aim she successfully carried out in many of her works, 
but in none more than in that by which she is best known, — Character- 
istics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical. These are designed to illus- 
trate the Female Characters of Shakspeare; and seldom has a commentator 
caught more perfectly the spirit of an author, or conveyed to the reader a more 
exact or a more vivid impression of his genius and scope. It is more than in- 
teresting : it is fascinating ; for, wherever we take it up, we find it not easy to 
lay it down. ''The secret of this excellence of Mrs. Jameson's book we take to 
be the fact that it is a woman — a very woman — who undertakes the task : none 
so well able as those to approve or condemn, as one who, being of a like nature, 
has in herself had the same feelings excited in her own heart during her life, — 
who, as lover, wife, mother, and friend, has in turn acted all these parts in real 
history, and has not gone to other commentators for her criticism. '"^ 

In her Essays, Mrs. Jameson has an admirable chapter on our own country- 
man, Washington Allston, Avhose peculiar genius and power she well appre- 
ciates; for, an artist herself, she could enter into an artist's hopes and fears, his 
disappointments and his triumphs. In her chapter, in the same book, entitled 
"Woman's Mission and Woman's Position," she takes a plain, practical, com- 
mon-sense view of t^at hackneyed theme on which so much nonsense has been 



1 I may add prolific, too ; for her mine of in- 
tellectual wealth seems to be inexhaustible. 
The following are the chief of her published 
■works: — Diary of an Ennuyee ; Charactur- 
istica of Women : Memoirs and Essays illus- 
trative' of Art, Literature, and Social Morals; 
Memoirs of Female Sovereigns ; Loves of the 
Poets; Hand-Book to Public Picture-Gallekes in 



and near London; History of the Early Italian 
Painters; Social Life in Germany; Poetry of 
Sacred and Legendary Art ; Companion to Pri- 
vate Picture-Galleries. A complete edition, 
and a very beautiful one, of all her works, in 
ten volumes, has been published by Ticknor 
& Fields, Boston. 
2 Powell's Living Authors of England. 



570 ANNA JAMESON. 

Bpoken and written. In short, in most of her works she aims to be practical,— 
" to bring the flowers of art and genius to glorify our common household lives, 
and render them more sweet by the beatification." 

Mrs. Jameson was born in Dublin in 1796. Her maiden name was Anna 
Murphy, and her father was an artist: hence her own fine taste and skill in 
pen-drawing; for she is generally esteemed one of the first art-critics England 
has produced. She was married in 1823 to Mr. Eobert Jameson, a barrister, 
and who subsequently filled the office of Vice-Chancellor of Canada. The 
marriage was not a happy one, and was practically, though not legally, dis- 
solved soon after its celebration. From that time she devoted her life to litera- 
ture, and died March 17, 1860. 

PORTIA. 

Portia is endued with her own share of those delightful quali- 
ties which Shakspeare has lavished on many of his female cha- 
racters ; but, besides the dignity, the SAveetness, and tenderness 
which should distinguish her sex generally, she is individualized 
by qualities peculiar to herself; by her high mental powers, her 
enthusiasm of temperament, her decision of purpose, and her 
buoyancy of spirit. These are innate : she has other distinguish- 
ing qualities more external, and which are the result of the cir- 
cumstances in which she is placed. Thus, she is the heiress of a 
princely name and countless wealth ; a train of obedient pleasures 
have ever waited round her ; and from infancy she has breathed 
an atmosphere redolent of perfume and blandishment. Accord- 
ingly, there is a commanding grace, a high-bred, airy elegance, 
a spirit of magnificence in all that she does and says, as one to 
whom splendor had been familiar from her very birth. She 
treads as though her footsteps had been among marble palaces, 
beneath roofs of fretted gold, o'er cedar floors and pavements of 
jasper and porphyry, — amid gardens full of statues and flowers 
and fountains and haunting music. She is full of penetrative 
wisdom and genuine tenderness and lively wit ; but, as she has 
never known want or grief or fear or disappointment, her wisdom 
is without a touch of the sombre or the sad ; her affections are all ■ 
mixed up with faith, hope, and joy ; and her wit has not a particle 
of malevolence or causticity. 

But all the finest parts of Portia's character are brought to 
bear in the trial scene. There she shines forth in all her divine 
self Her intellectual powers, her elevated sense of religion, her 
high honorable principles, her best feelings as a woman, are all 
displayed. She maintains at first a calm self-command, as one 
sure of carrying her point in the end ; yet the painful, heart- 
thrilling uncertainty in which she keeps the whole court, until 
suspense verges upon agony, is not contrived for effect merely : it 
is necessary and inevitable. She has two objects in view : to de- 
liver her husband's friend, and to maintain her husband's honor 



ANNA JAMESON. 571 

by the discharge of his just debt, though paid out of her own 
wealth ten times over. It is evident that she would rather owe 
the safety of Antonio to any other thing than the legal quibble 
with which her cousin Bellario has armed her, and which she 
reserves as a last resource. Thus, all the speeches addressed to 
Shylock in the first instance are either direct or indirect experi- 
ments on his temper and feelings. She must be understood, from 
the beginning to the end, as examining with intense anxiety the 
effect of her own words on his mind and countenance ; as watch- 
ing for that relenting spirit which she hopes to awaken either by 
reason or persuasion. ^She begins by an appeal to his mercy, in 
that matchless piece of eloquence which, with an irresistible and 
solemn pathos, falls upon the heart like "gentle dew from 
heaven :" but in vain ; for that blessed dew drops not more 
fruitless and unfelt on the parched sand of the desert than do 
these heavenly words upon the ear of Shylock. She next attacks 
his avarice : — 

"Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee!" 

Then she appeals, in the same breath, both to his avarice and 
his pity : — 

'' Be merciful ! 
Take thrice thy money. Bid me tear the bond." 

All that she says afterwards, — her strong expressions,- which are 
calculated to strike a shuddering horror through the nerves, — 
the reflections she interposes, — her delays and circumlocution, to 
give time for any latent feeling of commiseration to display itself, 
— all, all are premeditated, and tend in the same manner to the 
object she has in view. Thus, — 

" You must prepare your bosom for his knife. 
Therefore lay bare your bosom !" 

These two speeches, though addressed apparently to Antonio, are 
spoken at Shylock, and are evidently intended to penetrate his 
bosom. In the same sj^irit she asks for the balance to weigh the 
pound of flesh; and entreats of Shylock to have a surgeon 
ready : — 

"Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge, 
To stop his wouncis, lest he do bleed to death ! 

Shylock. — Is it so nominated in the bond ? 

Portia. — It is not so expressed, — but what of that ? 
'Twere good you do so much, for charity!" 

So unwilling is her sanguine and generous spirit to resign all 
hope, or to believe that humanity is absolutely extinct in the 
bosom of the Jew, that she calls on Antonio, as a last resource, 
to speak for himself His gentle, yet manly, resignation, — the 



572 ANNA JAMESON. 

deep pathos of his farewell, and the affectionate allusion to her- 
self in his last address to Bassanio, — 

"Commend me to your honorable wife ! 
Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death," &c. — 

are well calculated to swell that emotion which, through the whole 
scene, must have been laboring suppressed within her heart. 

At length the crisis arrives, — for patience and womanhood can 
endure no longer ; and when Shylock, carrying his savage bent 
" to the last hour of act," springs on his victim, — " A sentence ! 
come, prepare !" — then the smothered scorn, indignation, and dis- 
gust burst forth with an impetuosity which interferes with the 
judicial solemnity she had at first affected ; particularly in the 
speech, — 

"Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh. 
Shed thou no blood ; nor cut thou less, nor more, 
But just a pound of flesh: if thou tak'st more. 
Or less, than a just pound, — be it but so much 
As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance. 
Or the division of the twentieth part 
Of one poor scruple ; nay, if the scale do turn 
But in the estimation of a hair ; 
Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate." 

But she Afterwards recovers her propriety, and triumphs with 
a cooler scorn and a more self-possessed exultation. 

It is clear that, to feel the full force and dramatic beauty of 
this marvellous scene, we must go along with Portia as well as 
with Shylock ; we must understand her concealed purpose, keep 
in mind her noble motives, and pursue in our fancy the under- 
current of feeling working in her mind throughout. The terror 
and the power of Shylock's character — his deadly and inexorable 
malice — would be too oppressive, the pain and pity too intolerable, 
and the horror of the possible issue too overwhelming, but for the 
intellectual relief afforded by this double source of interest and 
contemplation. 

I come now to that capacity for warm and generous affection, 
that tenderness of heart, which render Portia not less lovable as 
a woman than admirable for her mental endowments. What an 
exquisite stroke of judgment in the poet to make the mutual 
passion of Portia and Bassanio, though unacknowledged to each 
other, anterior to the opening of the play ! Bassanio's confession 
very properly comes first : — 

"Bassanio. — In Belmont is a lady richly left, 

And she is fair, and, fairer than that word. 

Of wondrous virtues ; sometimes from her eyes 

I did receive fair speechless messages ;" 



ANNA JAMESON. 573 

and prepares us for Portia's half-betrayed, unconscious election 
of this most graceful and chivalrous admirer : — 

"Nerissa. — Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, 
^ scholar, and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of 
Montferrat ? 

^'Portia. — Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so he was called. 

"Nerissa. — True, madam ; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes 
looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. 

"Portia. — I remember him well; and I remember him worthy of thy 
praise." 

Our interest is thus awakened for the lovers from the very first : 
and what shall be said of the casket scene with Bassanio, where 
every line which Portia speaks is so worthy of herself, so full of 
sentiment and beauty, and poetry and passion? Too naturally 
frank for disguise, too modest to confess her depth of love while 
the issue of the trial remains in suspense, — the conflict between 
love and fear, and maidenly dignity, causes the most delicious 
confusion that ever tinged a woman's cheek, or dropped in broken 
utterance from her lips : — 

" I pray you tarry ; pause a day or two. 
Before you hazard : for, in choosing wrong, 
I lose your company ; therefore, forbear a while ; 
There's something tells me (but it is not love) 
I would not lose you ; and you know yourself 
Hate counsels not in such a quality : 
But lest you should not understand me well 
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought), 
I would detain you here some month or two. 
Before you venture for me. I could teach you 
How to choose right, — but then I am forsworn ; 
So will I never be ; so you may miss me ; 
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, 
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, 
They have o'erlook'd me, and divided me ; 
One half of me is yours, the other half yours, — 
Mine own, I would say ; but if mine, then yours, 
And so all yours !" 

The short dialogue between the lovers is exquisite : — 

"Bassanio. Let me choose; 

For, as I am, I live upon the rack. 
Portia. — Upon the rack, Bassanio ? Then confess 

What treason there is mingled with your love. 
Bassanio. — None, but that ugly treason of mistrust. 

Which makes me iear the enjoying of my love; 
There may as well be amity and life 
'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love. 
Portia. — Ay! but I fear you speak upon the rack. 
Where men enforced do speak any thing. 
Bassanio. — Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth. 



574 ANNA JAMESON. 

Portia. — Well, then, confess, and live. 

Bassanio. Confess and love 

Had been the very sum of my confession ! 
O happy torment, when my torturer 
Doth teach me answers for deliverance !" 

A prominent feature in Portia's character is that confiding, 
buoyant spirit which mingles with all her thoughts and affections. 
And here let me observe that I never yet met in real life, nor 
ever read in tale or history, of any woman distinguished for in- 
tellect of the highest order, who was not also remarkable for this 
trustingness of spirit, this hopefulness and cheerfulness of temper, 
which is compatible with the most serious habits of thought and 
the most profound sensibility. Lady Wortley Montagu was one 
instance; and Madame de Stael furnishes another much more 
memorable. In her Corinne, w^hom she drew from herself, this 
natural brightness of temper is a prominent part of the character. 
A disposition to doubt, to suspect, and to despond, in the young, 
argues, in general, some inherent weakness, moral or physical, or 
some miserable and radical error of education ; in the old, it is 
one of the first symptoms of age ; it speaks of the influence of 
sorrow and experience, and foreshows the decay of the stronger 
and more generous powers of the soul. Portia's strength of in- 
tellect takes a natural tinge from the flush and bloom of her 
young and prosperous existence, and from her fervid imagination. 
In the casket scene she fears, indeed, the issue of the trial, on 
which more than her life is hazarded ; but, while she trembles, 
her hope is stronger than her fear. While Bassanio is contem- 
plating the caskets, she suffers herself to dwell for one moment 
on the possibility of disappointment and misery : — 

" Let music sound, while he doth make his choice ; 
Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end ; 
Fading in music : that the comparison ^ 

May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream I 

And watery death-bed for him." 

Then immediately follows that revulsion of feeling so beauti- 
fully characteristic of the hopeful, trusting, mounting spirit of 
this noble creature: — 

" But he may win ! 
And what is music then ? — then music is 
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow 
To a new-crown' d monarch ; such it is 
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day, 
That creep into the dreamy bridegroom's ear, 
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes 
With no less presence, but with much more love, 
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem 
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy 
To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice." 



ANNA JAMESON 575 

Here, not only the feeling itself, born of the elastic and san- 
guine spirit which had never been touched by grief, but the 
images in which it comes arrayed to her fancy, — the bridegroom 
waked by music on his wedding morn ; the new-crowned mon- 
arch ; the comjDarison of Bassanio to the young Alcides, and of 
herself to the daughter of Laomedon, — are all precisely what 
would have suggested themselves to the fine poetical imagination 
of Portia in such a moment. 

Her passionate exclamations of delight, when Bassanio has 
fixed on the right casket, are as strong as though she had de- 
spaired before. Fear and doubt she could repel ; the native 
elasticity of her mind bore up against them ; yet she makes us 
feel that, as the sudden joy overpowers her almost to fainting, the 
disap|)ointment would as certainly have killed her: — 

" How all the other passions fleet to air, 
As doubtful thoughts, and rash embraced despair, 
And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy ! 

love ! be moderate, allay tliy ecstasy ; 
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess ; 

1 feel too much thy blessing ; make it less, 
For fear I surfeit !" 

Her subsequent surrender of herself, in heart and soul, of her 
maiden freedom and her vast possessions, can never be read with- 
out deep emotion ; for not only all the tenderness and delicacy of 
a devoted woman are here blended with all the dignity which 
becomes the princely heiress of Belmont, but the serious, mea- 
sured self-possession of her address to her lover, when all suspense 
is over and all concealment superfluous, is most beautifully con- 
sistent with the character. It is, in truth, an awful moment, — 
that in which a gifted woman first discovers that, besides talents 
and powers, she has also passions and affections ; when she first 
begins to suspect their vast importance in the sum of her exist- 
ence ; when she first confesses that her hapj)iness is no longer in 
her own keeping, but is surrendered forever and forever into the 
dominion of another! The possession of uncommon powers of 
mind is so far from affording relief or resource in the first in- 
toxicating surprise — I had almost said terror — of such a revo- 
lution, that they render it more intense. The sources of thought 
multiply beyond calculation the sources of feeling ; and, mingled, 
they rush together, a torrent deep as strong. Because Portia is 
endued with that enlarged comprehension which looks before 
and after, she does not feel the less, but the more ; because from 
the height of her commanding intellect she can contemplate the 
force, the tendency, the consequences, of her own sentiments; 
because she is fully sensible of her own situation, and the value 
of all she concedes, — the concession is not made with less entire- 



576 CROLY. 

ness and devotion of heart, less confidence in the truth and worth 
of her lover, than when Juliet, in a similar moment, but with- 
out any such intrusive reflections, any check but the instinctive 
delicacy of her sex, flings herself and her fortunes at the feet of 
her lover : — • 

"And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, 
And follow thee, my lord, through all the world.''^ 

In Portia's confession, which is not breathed from a moonlit 
balcony, but spoken ojDcnly in the presence of her attendants 
and vassals, there is nothing of the passionate self-abandonment 
of Juliet, nor of the artless simplicity of Miranda, but a con- 
sciousness and a tender seriousness, approaching to solemnity, 
which are not less touching : — 

" You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, 
Such as I am : though, for myself alone, 
I would not be ambitions in my wish, 
To wish myself much better ; yet, for you 
I would be trebled twenty times myself; 
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times 
More rich ; 

That only to stand high in your account, 
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends. 
Exceed account : but the full sum of me 
Is sum of something ; which, to term in gross, 
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised ; 
Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
But she may learn ; and happier than this, 
She is not bred so dull but she can learn ; 
Happiest of all, in that her gentle spirit 
Commits itself to yours to be directed. 
As from her lord, her governor, her king. 
Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours 
Is now converted. But now I was the lord 
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants. 
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now. 
This house, these servants, and this same myself 
Are yours, my lord." 



GEORGE CROLY, 1780-1860. ^ 

Eev. George Croly was born in Dublin in 1780, and was educated at Trinity 
College, in his native city, where he took his regular Master's degree, and was 
subsequently ordained "deacon and priest" in the English Church. After a 
few years he went to England to settle, and in 1835 was presented, by Lord 
Lyndhurst, at the earnest recommendation of Lord Brougham, with the living 



1 " Romeo and Juliet," Act ii. Sceno 2. 



CROLY. 



577 



of St. Stephen's Churcli, Walbrook, London, which position he continued to 
occupy till his death, which occurred November 24, 1860, when he suddenly 
expired from a stroke of apoplexy. 

Dr. Croly was quite famous in his day as a writer of much beauty and power. 
He began his literary career with a poem, entitled Pa7'is in 1815, describing 
the art treasures of the French capital which Napoleon I. had gathered from 
the various cities of Southern Europe. From that time forth his pen was in 
constant exercise, and not many authors of this century who have written so 
much have written so well. His prose style is clear, rich, idiomatic, and at 
times eloquent 5 while as a poet he has many great and shining qualities, — 
"a rich command of language, whether for the tender or the serious, an ear 
finely attuned to musical expression, a fertile and lucid conceptive power, and 
an intellect at once subtle and masculine. Hundreds of copies of verses from 
his indefatigable pen, some of them of surpassing excellence, lie scattered 
about, — rich bouquets of unowned flowers, — throughout the wide, unbounded 
fields of periodical literature."^ 

As a pulpit orator Dr. Croly was one of the most celebrated in his day. He 
rarely wrote his sermons, but delivered them in that impassioned manner so 
peculiar to that school of Irish eloquence which was graced by the names of 
Sheridan, Grattan, and Curran. As a man, one who knew him intimately for 
thirty years testifies to his "affectionate kindness in private life," and adds 
this beautiful tribute: — "he treated his domestics more as his children than as 
servants, and took constant interest in their comfort and welfare."^ 

PROGRESS OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION. 

In the midst of this period Constantinople fell ! ^ and a catas- 
trophe which seemed to have crumbled the ramparts of Europe 
before barbarism, and stooped Christendom to the Turk, was 
made the primary source of European civilization. By the fall 
of the Greek empire, its learning and the old stimulant of the hu- 
man understanding was suddenly spread anew through the West. 
Then followed the passage to India, which had baffled mankind 
in all ages ; and with it followed all the animation belonging to 
the most opulent commerce in the world. Then, still rising in 
the scale, the discovery of America, of which man had never 
dreamed, — a discovery which gave him the astonishing donative 



ID. M. Moir. 

2 Read a very pleasant book. Personal Re- 
collections of Dr. Croly, by Richard Herring, 
London, 1861. The following ie, I believe, 
a correct list of his works. While they are 
highly creditable to the learning and talents 
of their author, they give evidence of an ad- 
touishing industry that could accomplish so 
much, independent of his parochial duties. 
Theological: — Divine Providence, or Three 
Cycles of Revelation ; A New Interpretation of 
the Apocalypse; The True Idea of Baptism; 
Sermons Preached at St. Stephen's, Walbrook; 
Sermons on Important Subjects ; Speeches on the 
Papal Aggression ; pamphlets on Marriage with 
a Deceased Wife's Sister, and on the Proposed 
Admission of Jews into Parliament. Politi- 



cal and Miscellaneous : — The Political Life of 
Edmund Burke; The Personal History of 
George IV. ; Historical Essays on Luther, &c. ; 
Tales of the Great St. Bernard ; Salathiel (the 
Wandering Jew), three volumes; Marston, or 
the Soldier and Statesman, three volumes; 
Character of Curran's Eloquence and Politics. 
Poetical: — Paris in 1S15, and other Poems; 
Catiline, a Tragedy, with other Poems; Pride 
Shall Have a Fall, a Comedy; The Angel of 
the World, an Arabian, and Sebastian, a 
Spanish tale; Poems Illustrative of Gems from 
the Antique ; Scenes from Scripture ; and a vast 
body of miscellaneous poetry scattered through 
the periodical literature of the day. 

8 Besieged and taken by the Turks under 
Mohammed II. in 1463. 



49 



578 CROLY. 

of a new liemispliere, doubled the world, poured in upon him a 
tide of gold, and, in the fresh resources of that new and bound- 
less region, offered incalculable means of increasing his enjoy- 
ments, his uses, and his knowledge. Never before was such a 
series of brilliant excitements heaped upon the human race. It 
is well known that they were felt in their full force throughout 
the whole frame of society. The correspondence of even the 
most secluded scholars of those days teems with expressions of 
delight, surprise, and gratitude. But the effect of those disco- 
veries was to be more than the indulgence of an ardent or a 
learned curiosity : it Avas to teach men to think on the great sub- 
jects of civil and religious freedom : that shower of meteors not 
only dazzled and delighted the universal eye with descending 
splendor, but ploughed up the old rigidity of a moral soil, long 
hardened by the heaviest tread of tyranny and superstition. 

POETBY. 

I regard poetry in a higher point of view than as the most 
pleasing and popular of the arts of mind. I regard it less in 
form than in spirit ; as a power ; as, even in its rudest shape, the 
indication of the uncultured genius of a people ; as the divining- 
rod, pointing out, in the wild and sterile surface of national cha- 
racter, where the mine exists below. 

Like a spirit, it is to be described only by negatives: it is 
neither pomp nor prettiness of phrase; it is neither the attempt 
to swell trifling into dignity, nor the substitution of hazy imagery 
for the truth of nature. It is the living language of the soiil. . 
If eloquence is impassioned reason, poetry is impassioned sensi-- 
bility. And its especial character is to share that sensibility with 
all nature. It touches all the forms and features of the land- 
scape with affections like its own. It thus hears 

" Tongues in the running brooks, i AJ 

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." m 

It peoples the wilderness ; it gives a language to the cataract ; 
it talks to the everlasting hills ; it hears harmonies in the gush- 
ing of the wind, in the heaving of the forest, even in the silence 
of night ; it sees shapes of unearthly beauty in the sunset ; it 
draws inspiration from the stars. 

POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

A science attracting every one by the simplicity of its princi- 
ples, but disappointing all by the intricacy of their practice; 
abounding in theories, all plausible and all discordant; an al- 
chemical science, alluring us by the promise of turning dust into 
gold, until the alchemist dies over his crucible. 



CROLY. 579 

METAPHYSICS. 

To metapliysics I shall scarcely more than allude. It is the 
science of grave trifling, — a species of intellectual gaming, in 
which the most successful gain nothing and all lose time. Cul- 
tivated in the last two centuries by a crowd of sounding conti- 
nental names, among which Leibnitz, Spinoza, and Kant were 
the chief, it only showed to what feeble tenuities Truth might be 
spun, and to what palpable irrationalities Keasoning might 
descend. * * * * 

But the science is frivolous in its nature. It is to knowledge 
what making a voyage in the air is to making a road through 
the wilderness : whatever progress is made by the metaphysician 
leaves no track behiftd, supplies no directions for the voyage that 
follows, and finishes in the mere exhaustion of the vehicle. 
Taking for its subject the organization of the mind, of which man 
knows nothing, and never can know any thing, its product can 
only be conjectures without probability, and theories, of which 
the hindmost regularly treads down the one that went before. 

PURPOSES OF PRAYER. 

In the shallowness of skepticism it has been asked, Why are 
we to pray when the purpose of our prayer is already known ? 
The answer is, that Omniscience, of course, reads the thoughts 
of man. But prayer is demanded not as a communication of 
our wants, but as a proof of our convictions. It is a description 
of the heart, it implies an immediate sense of homage, of obe- 
dience, and of gratitude. If the bounties of heaven were given 
to man without prayer, they would be received without acknow- 
ledgment. Man, nurtured wholly by the spontaneous benevolence 
which sustains the brute, Avould be, like the brute, unconscious 
of the Giver. Prayer, administering the perpetual lesson of 
humility, of hope, and of love, makes us feel our connection with 
Heaven through every touch of our necessities ; it binds us to 
Providence by a chain of daily benefits ; it impresses the heart 
of all with a perpetual remembrance of the God of all. 

CHRISTIANITY. 

Christianity has been distinguished from all other religions, 
except that of the Jews, by the openness of its origin. It was 
neither born in remote fiction, nor matured in studied obscurity ; 
it neither hid its infant head in caves, nor walked the world in 
clouds. From the beginning it appealed to reason, it courted 
inquiry, it demanded publicity ; to this hour it is the religion of 
research, of knowledge, of ancient learning, and of modern judg- 
ment. No religion ever so vigorously urged the progress of the 



580 CROLY. 

human understanding, by turning all its powers to the investiga- 
tion of subjects the most practical, yet the most elevating and 
superb, which can stimulate the human mind. 

What it is now, it was in the first hours of its being. What it 
is when the interests of nations are bound up with its universality^ 
it was when its sole champions were grouped in a chamber in 
Jerusalem, or hunted from city to city by the sword. " These 
things were not done in a corner," was one of its earliest chal- 
lenges to the intellectual vigor of mankind. 

THE JEWS. 

The existence of the Jews exhibits the character of a Divine 
interposition. Mixed with all mankind, yet Separate ; exercising 
the highest influence as individuals, yet in the lowest condition 
as a people; amassing the greatest opulence, yet nationally poor; 
adhering to their national belief, yet without the power of renew- 
ing their national worship ; the dwellers in every land, yet the 
population of none ; scattered through the world, yet preserving 
a connection ; and marked by that unchangeable visage which 
has never communicated itself to any other nation, and has never 
been obliterated by time, chance, or misfortune. A nation de- 
nationalized! The existence of the Jews is a miracle when all 
other miracles have ceased, — a living proof of the continued ac- 
tion of Providence on human affairs, and an attestation to the 
truth of their history, bearing the most signal stamp of Heaven. 

3IAN. 

The Eye, the glorious eye ! 

What lie beneath its splendid sweep? 
All bright, all deep, all high. 

Broad Ocean, Alpine steep, 
Night's grandeur, morning's rosy dye, 

The hues that on the evening waters sleep ; 
All beauty, might, and majesty, 

Bright orb, all lie within thy splendid sweep. 

The Heart, the glowing heart ! 

What lie within its mystic cells ? 
Visions that shame the painter's art, 

Deep thoughts, that only silence tells. 
Stings, like the Indian's poison'd dart. 

That kill unseen. Delicious spells ! 
Love fix'd, till life itself depart ; 

Fond thing, all lie within thy mystic cells. 

The Mind, the mighty mind ! 

What lie beneath its sceptre's sway? 
The million wills of human-kind. 

Empire's young strength, and old decay; 



CROLY. 581 

The laws that grasp the viewless wind, 

The science of the Solar way ; 
The chains by eloquence entwined; 

Sovereign ! — all lie beneath thy sceptre's sway. 

The Soul, the soaring soul ! 

What lie beneath thy fiery wing? 
Beneath thee burns the starry Pole, 

Above thee sits, alone, thy King! 
Thou, when the final thunders roll. 

In glory from the grave shalt spring. 
Life, Death, and Heaven, — the mighty whole, — 

Immortal ! lie beneath thy fiery wing. 

HYMN OF THE UNIVERSE. 

Eoll on, thou Sun ! in glory roll, 

Thou Giant, rushing through the Heaven, 
Creation's wonder, Nature's soul, 

Thou hast no morn, and hast no even ; 
The Planets die without thy blaze ; 

The Cherubim, with star-dropp'd wing. 
Float on the ocean of thy rays. 
"Thou brightest emblem of their King ! 

Eoll, lovely Earth, in night and noon, 

With Ocean's band of beauty bound. 
While one sweet orb, the pearly Moon, 

Pursues thee through the blue profound ; 
And angels, with delighted eyes, 

Behold thy plains, and mounts, and streams, 
In day's magnificence of dyes. 

Swift whirling, like transcendent dreams. 

Roll, Planets, on your dazzling road, 

Forever sweeping round the Sun. 
What eye beheld, when first ye glow'd? 

What eye shall see your courses done ? 
Roll, in your solemn majesty, 

Ye deathless splendors of the skies, 
Ye Altars, from which angels see 

The incense of Creation rise. 

Roll, Comets, on your flaming cars, 

Ye heralds of sublimer skies ; 
Roll on, ye million-million Stars, 

Ye hosts, ye heavens of galaxies ! 
Ye, who the Avilds of Nature roam. 

Unknown to all but angels' wings. 
Tell us, in what more glorious dome, 

Rules all your worlds, the King of Kings ? 

ENERGY. 

Earth's rough yet noblest spell is — Energy ! 

Mind's hammer, hatchet, plough ! the stern-faced dun, 
That makes us pay our debt to man — or die ! 
Never to halt, until the race is run, — 

To know no weariness ; no danger shun ; 
49* 



682 



ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 



Until Time's hand has struck the crowning hour, — 

To think that nothing's done, till all is done, — 
Through day and night, through sunshine and through shower, 
To fight the gallant fight ! — Kesolve, itself, is power ! 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 1809-186 L 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, generally esteemed as "England's greatest 
poetess," was the daughter of Mr. Barrett, a gentleman of fortune living in 
Herefordshire, and was born in the year 1809. "When she was ten years old, 
she began to write in prose and verse; and at fifteen her powers as a writer were 
known to her friends. Her early education, conducted chiefly, and in a naost 
thorough manner, by her father, included the acquisition of the ancient and 
modern languages, as well as the stvidy of mental and natural philosophy. 
Her first attempts at authorship were contributions to the magazines of a series 
of essays on the Greek poets. In her seventeenth year she published her first 
work, — a metaphysical poem entitled Essay on Mind. In 1833 appeared, 
anonymously, her translation of Prometheus Bound,^ a wonderful production 
for a lady of her age, but which she afterwards superseded by a better version.^ 
Her public fame, however, begins with 1838, when she collected her best verses 
from the periodicals, and published them as Tlie Seraphim, and other Foems.^ 
Soon after, her health began to fail from the breaking of a blood-vessel in the 
lungs, and she was taken to Torquay* for her health. Here a sad accident 
occurred, which threw a shadow over many years of her life, and which nearly 
caused its loss. Her brother and two of his young friends went out in a small 
boat for a few hours' sail. The boat was overset, and the three were drowned. 
So great was the shock to her theYi delicate frame, that nearly a year passed 
before she could be removed to London, and then only by easy stages of twenty 
miles a day. In a commodious and darkened room in her father's house,^ to 
which only her own family and a few devoted friends were admitted, she spent 
a number of years, gaining strength slowly, devoting her time to the best books 
in various languages, and writing poetry according to her inspiration. It was 
from this seclusion that she sent forth, in 1844, the first collected edition of her 
Poems, in two volumes, upon which her fame chiefly rests. 

In 1846 the brightness of Miss Barrett's life was restored, and perfected in 
her marriage with Robert Browning ; and soon after they went to Italy, — first to 
Pisa, and then to Florence, where they settled for life. In 1850 she published 
her collected works, together with several new poems, among which was Lady 
Geraldine's Courtship. In 1851 appeared Casa Guidi Windows, the theme of 
which is the struggle made by the Tuscans for freedom in 1849. Aurora Leigh, 
her longest production, was published in 1856. Poems before Congress appeared 



1 The Quarterly Review describG(} it as " a 
remarkable performance for a young lady, but 
not a good translation in and by itaejf." 

2 See the Cinnpendium of Classical Iiitera. 
ture, under ^schylus. 

3 Kindly noticed by Professor Wilson in the 
August number of Blackwood of that year. 



4 On the southern coast of Devonshire: far 
invalids its climate in winter is one of tbe 
mildest and best in England. 

6 In Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square. In 
No- 67 of this street Hallam wrote his History 
of the, Middle J.ye.s and his Constitutional His- 
tory of England, 



ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 



583 



in 1860, relating chiefly to the Italian war of 1859. She died at Florence, Juno 
29, 1861. 

While Mrs. Browning has written much that posterity will never let die, — 
pieces justly valued for their rare beauty and delicacy of thought, their high 
imagination, their tenderness, their noble moral truths and pure religious 
faith, — her poems, as a whole, can never be popular, in the fullest sense of that 
term, on account of so much that is in them partaking largely of the mystical 
and the obscure, — the fault of too many writers of the present day.i That she 
etands, however, at the head of all female poets of this century, is generally 
conceded. But better even than her high character as a poet was her cha- 
racter as a woman, — so pure, so noble, so holy. Not many other poets can be 
named, whose enthusiasm for truth, for liberty, for justice, and for the rights 
and the well-being of man as man, was so strong and so constant.^ 



THE DUTIES AND JOYS OF W03IAN.^ 

"Adam. "^ * ^ Henceforward, 
To all the calms and magnanimities, 
The lofty uses and the noble ends, 
The sanctified devotion and full work, 
To which thou art elect for evermore, 
First woman, wife, and mother. 

Eve. And first in sin. 

Adam. And also the sole bearer of the Seed 
Whereby sin dieth ! Raise the majesties 
Of thy disconsolate brows, O well-beloved, 
And front with level eyelids the To Come, 
And all the dark o' the world. Rise, woman, rise 
To thy peculiar and best altitudes 
Of doing good and of enduring ill, — 
Of comforting for ill, and teaching good, 
And reconciling all that ill and good 
Unto the patience of a constant hope, — 
Rise with thy daughters ! If sin came by thee, 
And by sin, death, — the ransom-righteousness, 
The heavenly light and compensative rest, 
Shall come by means of thee. Be satisfied ; 
Something thou hast to bear through womanhood, 



rise, aspire 



1 " With whatever her poetry may be charge- 
able, whether of defect or of excess, — what- 
ever it either wants which it should have, or 
has which it should not have, — there are two 
vital elements (and they are the chief ingre- 
dients of the poetical) in which it is never 
wanting, — subtlety of imagination and force 
of conception and feeling." — Craik. If I am 
not able to subscribe to all that the admirers 
of Mrs. Browning may say, I wish to give her 
the benefit of their remarks. 

2 Miss Mitford (in that charming book, Re- 
collections of a Literary Life) describes Mrs. 
Browning in her early womanhood as "of a 
slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark 
curls falling on each side of a most expressive 
face, large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark 
eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a 
look of youthfulness that I had some difficulty 



in persuading a friend that she was the trana- 
latress of yExchylns, and the authoress of the 
Essay on Mind. She was certainly one of the 
most interesting persons I had ever seen." 

Read a fine article on Mrs. Browning in 
Bayne's Essays, first series ; also in Edinburgh 
Review, volume cxiv., and London Athenieuin, 
1S56. 

3 This is from the Drama of Exile; and 
Adam is here, at the command of Christ, pro- 
nouncing a blessing on Eve. "In fitness of 
conception, in terseness of diction, in loftiness 
of thought, these lines have all that the ge- 
nius of man could impart; while the thrill of 
deeper tenderness pervading them tells, in 
unmistakable accents, of a heart which can 
throb with wifely emotion, and a breast on 
which a babe sleeping in the light of ita 
mother's smile may rest." — Bayne's Essays. 



584 



ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 



Peculiar suffering answering to the sin, — 

Some pang paid down for each new human life, 

Some weariness in guarding such a life, 

Some coldncFS from tlie guarded ; some mistrust 

From those thou hast too well served ; from those beloved 

Too loyally, some treason ; feebleness 

Within thy heart, and cruelty without, 

And pressures of an alien tyranny 

With its dynastic reasons of larger bones 

And stronger sinews. But, go to ! Thy love 

Shall chant itself its own beatitudes. 

After its own life-working. A child's kiss 

Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad ; 

A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich ; 

A sick man help'd by thee, shall make thee strong; 

Thou slialt be served thyself by every sense 

Of service which thou renderest. * -x- * 

Eve. * * * I accept 
For me and for my daughters this high part 
Which lowly shall be counted. Noble work 
Shall hold me in the place of garden rest, 
And in the place of Eden's lost delight 
Worthy endurance of permitted pain ; 
While on my longest patience there shall wait 
Death's speechless angel, smiling in the east 
Whence cometh the cold wind." 



PORTRAITS OF THE POETS. 

There, Shakspeare ! on whose forehead climb 
The crowns o' the world. Oh, eyes sublime,— 
With tears and laughters for all time i * 

Here, Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim : 
The shapes of suns and stars did swim 
Like clouds from them, and granted him 



God for sole vision. * * 
And Sappho, with that gloriole 

Of ebon hair on calmed brows,- 
O poet woman ! none foregoes 
The leap, attaining the repose ! 



J 



And Burns, with pungent passionings 
Set in his eyes.^ * * * 

And Shelley, in his white ideal 
All statue blind.^ 



1 " This is a critique on Burns. When you 
have said this, you have spoken the one indis- 
pensable word concerning him: if you wrote 
folios on his poetry, you could hardly supple- 
ment, however you might illustrate, those 
' pungent passionings.' " 



2 " That, too, is marvellous : in philosophy 
profound, in pathos genuine, in poetry per- 
fect. There are few such examples of con- 
densation in the language."— Bayne's Essays. 



ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 



585 



And visionary Coleridge, who 

Did sweep his thoughts as angels do 

Tiieir wings with cadence up the Blue.^ 

And poor, proud Byron, — sad as grave, 
And salt as life : forlornly brave, 
And quivering with the dart he drave.^ 



SUPERIORITY OF THE SPIRITUAL OVER THE MATERIAL.^ 

For the rest, * 
Look here, sir : I was right upon the whole, 
That birthday morning, 'Tis impossible 
To get at men excepting through their souls, 
However open their carnivorous jaws ; 
And poets get directlier at the soul 
Than any of your economists : — for which, 
You must not overlook tlie poet's work 
When scheming for the world's necessities. 
The soul's the way. Not even Christ himself 
Can save man else than as He holds man's soul ; 
And therefore did He come into our flesh. 
As some wise hunter creeping on his knees 
With a torch, into the blackness of some cave, 
To face and quell the beast there, — take the soul. 
And so possess the whole man, body and soul. 

* * ■^ But innermost 

Of the inmost, most interior of the interne, 
God claims his own. Divine humanity 
Renewing nature, — or the piercingest verse, 
Prest in by subtlest poet, still must keep 
As much upon the outside of a man. 
As the very bowl in which he dips his beard. 

^ * '^ Verily, I was wrong ; 

And verily, many thinkers of this age. 
Ay, many Christian teachers, half in heaven. 
Are wrong in just my sense, who understood 
Our natural world too insularly, as if 
No spiritual counterpart completed it. 
Consummating its meaning, rounding all 
To justice and perfection, line by line. 
Form by form, nothing single nor alone, — 
The great below clench' d by the great above ; 
Shade here authenticating substance there ; 
The body proving spirit, as the effect 
The cause : we, meantime, being too grossly apt 
To hold the natural, as dogs a bone 
(Though reason and nature beat us in the face), 
So obstinately, that we'll break our teeth 



1 " It is little to say that these lines contain 
a biography. 

2 "This is very bold, and in almost any case 
might be pronounced towering pi-esumption. 
But Mrs. Browning had a right to say it ; she 
whose intellectual and imaginative powers 
are to the full as great as those of Byron, and 



who has never stained, by one foul image or 
impure emotion, the gold and azure of her 
genius." — Bayne's Essays. 

3 It. is not easy to make a selection from 
Auroi-a Leigh that, as an extract, will be in- 
teresting : to be properly appreciated, the 
work must be read as a whole. 



586 



ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 



Or ever we let go. For everywhere 

We're too materialistic, — eating clay 

(Like men of the west) instead of Adam's corn 

And Noah's wine ; clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, 

Until we're fill'd vip to the throat with clay, 

And grow the grimy color of the ground 

On which we are feeding. Ay, materialist 

The age's name is. God himself, with some, 

Is apprehended as the bare result 

Of what his hand materially has made, 

Express'd in such an algebraic sign, 

Call'd God ; — that is, to put it otherwise. 

They add up nature to a naught of God 

And cross the quotient. There are many, even, 

Whose names are written in the Christian church 

To no dishonor, — diet still on mud, 

And splash the altars with it. You might think 

The clay Christ laid upon their eyelids when. 

Still blind, he call'd them to the use of sight, 

Kemain'd there to retard its exercise 

Vvlth clogging incrustations. 

Aurora Leigh. 

THE SLEEP.^ 

Of all the thoughts of God that are 
Borne inward unto souls afar. 

Along the Psalmist's music deep, — 
Now tell me if that any is, 
For gift or grace, surpassing this ? 

" He giveth His beloved sleep." 

What would we give to our beloved ? 
The hero's heart to be unmoved, — 

The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep, — 
The senate's shout to patriot vows, — 
The monarch's crown to light the brows ? — 

" He giveth His beloved sleep." 

What do we give to our beloved ? 
A little faith, all undisproved, 

A little dust to overweep, — 
And bitter memories to make 
The whole earth blasted for our sake ! 

*' He giveth His beloved sleep." 

" Sleep soft, beloved !" we sometimes say. 
But have uq tune to charm av.'ay 

Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep : 



1 " The Sleep is one of tliose poems of Mrs. 
Browning's in which not only the inmost 
thought and feeling are beautiful and simple, 
but in which no veil intervenes between these 
and general sympathy. In her smaller poems 
she seemed to be working fairly clear of what 
must be called her mannerism. In these she 
stands before us in no classic adornment, 



clothed as with the perfect beauty of her own 
womanliness and truth. Had she b>en always 
so simple herself, her poems might be found 
on every cottage shelf." — Bayne. 

This admits that they are not "found on 
every cottage shelf;" that is, are not generally 
popular. Why not? Clearly because there is 
so much in them of the mystical and obscure. 



ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 587 

But never doleful dream again 
Shall break the happy slumber, when 
" He giveth His beloved sleep." 

O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
O men, with wailing in your voices 1 
O delved gold, the wallers' heap ! 

strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
God makes a silence through you all, 

And "giveth His beloved sleep." 

His dew drops mutely on the hill ; 
His cloud above it saileth still. 

Though on its slope men toil and reap; 
More softly than the dew is shed, 
Or cloud is floated overhead, 

" He giveth His beloved sleep." 

Ha ! men may wonder while they scan 
A living, thinking, feeling man, 

In such a rest his heart to keep ; 
But angels say, — and through the word 

1 ween their blessed smile is heard, — 

" He giveth His beloved sleep !" 

For me, my heart, that erst did go 
Most like a tired child at a show. 

That sees through tears the jugglers leap, — 
Would now its wearied vision close, 
Would childlike on His love repose. 

Who "giveth His beloved sleep!" 

And friends ! — dear friends ! — when it shall be 
That this low breath has gone from me. 

And round my bier ye come to weep ; 
Let one, most loving of you all. 
Say, not a tear must o'er her fall, — 

'* He giveth His beloved sleep !" 



COMFORT. 

Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet 
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, 
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so 
Who art not miss'd by any that entreat. 
Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet ! 

And if no precious gums my hands bestow, 
Let my tears drop like amber, while I go 
In reach of thy divinest voice complete 
In humanest affection, — thus, in sooth. 
To lose the sense of losing. As a child, 

Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, 
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth. 
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled. 
He sleeps the faster that he wept before. 



588 ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 



CONSOLATION. 

All are not taken ; there are left behind 
Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring, 
And make the daylight still a happy thing, 

And tender voices to make soft the wind. 

But if it were not so, — if I could find 
No love in all the world for comforting, 
Nor any path but hollowly did ring, 

Where " dust to dust" the love from life disjoin' d, 
And if, before those sepulchres unmoving, 

I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb 

Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth) 

Crying, "Where are ye, O my loved and loving?" 

I know a Voice Avould sound, " Daughter, I AM. 
Can I suffice for Heaven, and not for earth ?" 



SUBSTITUTION. 

When some beloved voice that was to you 
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly. 
And silence against which you dare not cry, 

Aches round you like a strong disease and new, — 

What hope? what help? what music will undo 
That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh, 

Not reason's subtle comit. Not melody 

Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew. 
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales. 

Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees 
To the clear moon ! nor yet the spheric laws 
Self-chanted, — nor the angels' sweet All hails, 

Met in the smile of God. Nay, none of these. 
Speak Tiiou, availing Christ ! — and fill this pause. 



COWPER'S GRAVE. 

It is a place where poets crown'd 

May feel the heart's decaying, — 
It is a place where happy saints 

May weep amid their praying: 
Yet let the grief and humbleness 

As low as silence languish ; 
Earth surely now may give her calm 

To whom she gave her anguish. 

O poets ! from a maniac's tongue 

Was pour'd the deathless singing ! 
O Christians ! at your cross of hope 

A hopeless hand was clinging ! 
O men ! this man in brotherhood, 

Your weary paths beguiling, 
Groan'd inly while he taught you peace, 

And died while ye were smiling. 



ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. 589 

And now, what time ye all may read 

Through dimming tears his story, — 
How discord on the music fell. 

And darkness on the glory, — 
And how, when, one by one, sweet sounds 

And wandering lights departed, 
He wore no less a loving face. 

Because so broken-hearted ; 

He shall be strong to sanctify 

The poet's high vocation, 
And bow the meekest Christian down 

In meeker adoration ; 
Nor ever shall he be in praise 

By wise or good forsaken ; 
Named softly as the household name 

Of one whom God hath taken ! 

With quiet sadness and no gloom 

I learn to think upon him; 
With meekness that is gratefulness, 

To God, whose heaven hath won him. 
Who suffer'd once the madness-cloud 

To His own love to blind him ; 
But gently led the blind along. 

Where breath and bird could find him; 

And wrought within his shatter' d brain 

Such quick poetic senses, 
As hills have language for, and stars 

Harmonious influences! 
The pulse of dew upon the grass 

Kept his within its number; 
And silent shadows from the trees 

Refresh' d him like a slumber. 

Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods 

To share his home-caresses, 
Uplooking to his human eyes 

With sylvan tendernesses. 
The very world, by God's constraint, 

From falsehood's ways removing, 
Its women and its men became 

Beside him true and loving ! 

And though in blindness he remain' d, 

Unconscious of that guiding, 
And things provided came without 

The sweet sense of providing. 
He testified this solemn truth. 

While frenzy desolated, — 
Nor man nor nature satisfy 

Whom only God created. 



60 



590 



KNOWLES. 



JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES, 178J,-1862. 

James Sheridan Knowles deserves a primary place here, as the most suc- 
cessful tragic dramatist of this century. He was born in Cork in 1784, where 
his father was an English master and a teacher of elocution. About 1792 the 
family removed to London, where young Knowles received his education, and 
in a very few years his passion for the drama displayed itself. He became an 
actor, and made his first appearance in Dublin; but he never attained to much 
eminence in this profession. Subsequently he lived several years in Belfast 
and Glasgow, as a teacher of elocution, and laid the foundation of his fame as 
a dramatic writer. His first tragedy, Caius Gracchus, was performed at Belfast 
in 1815. This was followed by Virginius, which established his reputation as 
the first of living dramatists. He afterwards brought out William Tell; The 
Beggar of Bethnal Green; The Hunchback ; The Wife, a Tale of Mantua; Alfred 
the Great; Love-Chase; Woman's Wit; Love, &c. He also published The Elo- 
cutionist, a collection of pieces in prose and verse, which passed through seven 
editions. 

About 1836 he came oyer to our country, and was very cordially received. A 
few years after his return, about 1845, his religious views undergoing a decided 
change, he relinquished all writing for the stage, and in 1849, his health be- 
ginning to fail, he received from Government a pension of £200 for "his labors 
in the cause of Literature and Virtue." In 1852 he united himself with the 
Baptist Church, and preached occasionally as opportunities offered. About 
this time he published two works on religious subjects: .The Rock of Borne, and 
The Idol Demolished by its own Priest, — the latter being an answer to Cardinal 
Wiseman's Lectures on Transubstantiation. He died at Torquay, in December, 
1862, in triumphant Christian faith. Among his last words were, "How infi- 
nite the goodness of God to me, a misei-able sinner ! I have offered only the 
dregs of my life to God.''^ 

It is evident from reading the dramas of Knowles that he was an earnest 
student of the great dramatists of the Elizabethan era, and especially of Mas- 
singer, upon whose style he seems to have formed his own : and if he be not 
equal to his original in genius, he certainly has the honor of having produced 
better acting plays, and such as are destined to be far more popular. 

WILLIAM TELL AND HIS SON. 

[William Tell, the great champion of liberty in Switzerland, has been taken 
prisoner by the tyrant Gesler, who promises him his life on the condition that 
he hits with his arrow an apple placed on the head of his son, at the distance 
of a hundred paces. Characters, Gesler, Tell, Albert, Verner.] 

Ges. That is your ground. Now shall they measure thence 
A hundred paces. Take the distance. 



1 Read an excellent Sermon on his Life and 
Character, by Rev. Alfred C. Thomas, Minister 
of Cross Street Cliapel (Baptist), Islington, 
London. I may add that Mr. Thomas was a 
noble friend of our conntry in her great 
struggle with the slaveholders' rebellion, and 



on December 21, 1862, preached an admirable 
fi^'rmon, entitled Prayerful Sympathy Invoiced 
for America, showing not only a heart right 
and sound for "Union and Liberty," but also 
a thorough understanding of the principles 
involved in our contest. 



EXO WLES. 591 

Tell Is 
The line a true one ? 

Ges. Be thankful, slave, 
Our grace accords thee lite on any terms. 

Tell I will be thankful, Gesler ! Villain, stop ! 
You measure to the sun. [jfb the attendant.'] 

Ges. And what of that? 
What matter, whether to or from the sun ? 

Tell. I'd have it at my back. The sun should shine 
Upon the mark, and not on him that shoots. 
I cannot see to shoot against the sun : 
I will not shoot against the sun ! 

Ges. Give him his way. Thou hast cause to bless my mercy. 

Tell. I shall remember it. I'd like to see 
The apple I'm about to shoot at. 

Ges. Show me 
The basket. There ! \_Gives a very small apple.'] 

Tell. You've picked the smallest one. 

Ges. I know I have. 

Tell. Oh, do you ? But you see 
The color oft is dark, — I'd have it light, 
To see it better. 

Ges. Take it as it is : 
Thy skill will be the greater, if thou hit'st it. 

Tell. True, — true, — I didn't think of that ; — I wonder 
I did not think of that. Give me some chance 
To save my boy, — [^Throws avxiy the apple) I will not murder him, 
If I can help it, — for the honor of 
The form thou wear'st, if all the heart is gone. 

Ges. Well, choose thyself. 

{^Hands a basket of apples. Tell takes one.] 

Tell. Have I a friend among 
The lookers on ? 

Verner. Here, Tell ! 

Tell. I thank thee, Yerner ! Take the boy 
And set him, Verner, with his back to me. 
Set him upon his knees ; — and place this apple 
Upon his head, so that the stem may front me, — 
Thus, Verner : charge him to keep steady, — tell him 
I'll hit the apple ! Verner, do all this 
More briefly than I tell it thee. 

Alb. May I not speak with him before I go ? 

Tell. My boy ! [Holding out his arms to him.] 

Alb. My father ! \_Iianning into Tell's arms.] 

Tell. If thou canst bear it, should not I ? — Go now, 
My son, and keep in mind that I can shoot. 
Go, boy, — be thou but steady, I will hit 
The apple. Go : — God bless thee ! — Go. 

My bow ! [Sarnem gives the bow.] 
Thou wilt not fail thy master, wilt thou ? Thou 
Hast never fail'd him yet, old servant. No, 
I'm sure of thee, — I know thy honesty; 

Thou'rt stanch, — stanch : — I'd deserve to find thee treacherous, 
Could I suspect thee so. Come, I wdll stake 
My all upon thee ! Let me see my quiver. [Betii^es.] 

Ges. Give him a single arrow. [ To an attendant.] 



592 KNOWLES. 

Tell. Is't so you pick an arrow, friend ? 
The point, you see, is bent, the feather jagged ; 
That's all the use 'tis for. \_Breaks it.~\ 

Ges. Let him have 
Another. [Tell examines iLl 

Tell. Why, 'tis better than the first, 
But yet not good enough for such an aim 
As I'm to take. 'Tis heavy in the shaft : 

I'll not shoot with it ! [Tkroics it away.l Let me see my quiver. 
Bring it ! 'tis not one arrow in a dozen 
I'd take to shoot with at a dove, much less 
A dove like that ! What is't you fear? I'm but 
A naked man, a wretched naked man ! 
Your helpless thrall, alone in the midst of you, 
With every one of you a weapon in 
His hand. What can I do in such a strait 
With all the arrows in that quiver ? Come, 
Will you give it me or not ? 

Ges. It matters not. 
Show him the quiver. 

[Tell kneels and picks out an arrow, then secretes one in Ms vest.'\ 

Tell. I'm ready! Keep silence, for [To the people} 
Heaven's sake ! and do not stir, and let me have 
Yovir prayers, — your prayers : — and be my witnesses, 
That, if his life's in peril from my hand, 
'Tis only for the chance of saving it. 
Now friends, for mercy's sake, keep motionless 
And silent ! 

[Tell shoots; and a shout of exidtcdion bursts from the crowd.l 

Ver. [Bushing in with Albert.'] Thy boy is safe ! no hair of him 
is touch' d ! 

Alb. Father, I'm safe ! — your Albert's safe! Dear father. 
Speak to me ! speak to me ! 

Ver. He cannot, boy ! 
Open his vest, and give him air. 
[Albert open^ his father's vest, and an arroio drops; Tell starts, fixes his eyes on 
Albert, and clasps him to his breast.] 

Tell. My boy ! my boy ! 

Ges. For what 
Hid you that arrow in your breast ? Speak, slave ! 

Tell. To kill thee, tyrant, had I slain my boy ! 
Liberty 

Would, at thy downfall, shout from every peak ! 
My country then were free ! 

E3IBLEMS OF LIBERTY IN NATURE. 

Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again ! 

I hold to you the hands you first beheld. 

To shoAV they still are free. Methinks I hear 

A spirit in your echoes answer me. 

And bid your tenant welcome to his home 

Again ! — O sacred forms, how proud you look ! 

How high you lift your heads into the sky ! 

How huge you are, how mighty, and how free ! 

Ye are the things that tower, that shine ; whose smile 



\ 



KhWWLES. 593 

Makes glad — whose frown is terrible ; wliose forms, 

Robed or unrobed, do all the impress Avear 

Of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty, 

I'm with you once again ! — I call to you 

With all my voice ! — I hold my hands to you. 

To show they still are free. 1 rush to you 

As though I could embrace you ! 

Scaling yonder peak, 
I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow, 
O'er the abyss. His broad expanded wings 
Lay calm and motionless upon the air, 
As if he floated there without their aid, 
By the sole act of his unlorded will. 
That buoy'd him proudly up. Instinctively 
I bent my bow ; yet kept he rounding still 
His airy circle, as in the delight 
Of measuring the ample range beneath 
And round about ; absorb'd, he heeded not 
The death that threaten'd him. I could not shoot — 
'Twas Liberty ! I turn'd my bow aside. 
And let him soar away ! 

Heavens ! with what pride I used 
To walk these hills, and look up to my God, 
And think the land was free. Yes, it was free — 
From end to end, from cliff to lake, 'twas free — 
Free as our torrents are that leap our rocks 
And plough our valleys without asking leave ; 
Or as our peaks that wear their caps of snow 
In very presence of the regal sun. 
How happy was I then ! I loved 
Its very storms. Yes, I have often sat 
In my boat at night, when midway o'er the lake — 
The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge 
The wind came roaring. I have sat and eyed 
The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled 
To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head. 
And think I had no master save his own. 
— On the wild jutting clift, o'ertaken oft 
By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along ; 
And while gust follow'd gust more furiously,^ 
As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink. 
Then I have thought of other lands, whose storms 
Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just 
Have wish'd me there ; the thought that mine was free 
Has check'd that wish ; and I have raised my head, 
And cried in thraldom to that furious wind. 
Blow on ! This is the land of liberty ! 



50* 



594 



WHATELY. 



RICHARD WHATELY, 1787-1863. 

"Whether we look at the intrinsic merits of his writings, or to the wide influ- 
ence they have exerted upon that class of minds that are in their turn to influ- 
ence the world, few if any authors of the present century stand higher than 
EicHARD Whately, D.D., late Archbishop of Dublin. As a writer, his distinct- 
ive characteristics are a thorough knowledge of his subject, perfect candor in 
stating all its difficulties, great clearness of style, and a remarkable freedom from 
all narrow and sectarian views. While he is, of course, most attached to his 
own branch of the Christian church, he can see and appreciate the good in all 
other denominations, and is not one of those who deem it necessary to destroy 
the foundation of others before he can begin to build up his OAvn.^ 

Of the numerous works of Dr. Whately, the Elements of Logic and Elements 
of Rhetoric have had the most extensive circulation. His Kingdom of Christ 
Delineated, in two Essays, is an able and lucid argument on the Nature of 
Christ's Kingdom, and on the Constitution, Powers, and Ministry of the Chris- 
tian Church, and is written in a most catholic spirit. In his Thoughts on the 
Sabbath he takes the true scriptural ground of the proper observance of the 
"Lord's Day," — showing that "the Sabbath was made for man," — and removes, 
as he says, the obligation for observing it " from the foundation of sand, ou 
which it is ordinarily placed, to fix it upon a rock." 

Of the general character of his works, a writer in the Edinburgh Review^ 
thus speaks : — " Though this lucid and eloquent writer may, for obvious reasons, 
be most widely known by his Logic and Rhetoync, the time will come when his 
Theological Works will be, if not more widely read, still more highly prized. 
To great powers of argument and illustration, and delightful transparency of 
diction and style, he adds a higher quality still, — and a very rare quality it is, 
— an evident and intense honesty of purpose, an absorbing desire to arrive at 
the exact truth and to state it with perfect fairness and with just limitations. 
Without pretending to agree with all that Archbishop Whately has written on 
the subject of Theology (though he carries his readers with him as frequently 
as any writer with whom we are acquainted), we may remark that, in relation 
to that whole class of subjects to which our present essay has reference, we 
know of no writer of the present day whose contributions are more numerous 



1 The followinf; is, I believe, a correct list of 
his works: — Elements of Logic, which has 
reached nine editions in England, been often 
republished here, and introduced as a text- 
book into some of our first colleges : Elements 
of Rhetoric, of which the seventh edition has 
been published in England, and which has 
also had a very extensive circulation here; 
Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, 
third edition ; Historic Doubts relative to Napo- 
leon Bonaparte, ninth edition ; Easy Lessons on 
Reasoning, fifth edition ; Easy Lessons on 
Money Matters, tenth edition ; The Kingdom of 
Christ Delineated, fourth edition ; Essays on 
some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Re- 
ligion, sixth edition ; Essays on some of the 
Difficulties in the Writings of the Apostle Paul, 
sixth edition ; Essays on the Errors of Roman- 
ism, third edition; Essays on some of the Dan- 
gers to Christian Faith which may arise from 



the Teaching or the Conduct of its Professors, 
second edition; 27*6 Use and Abuse of Party 
Feeling in Matters of Religion, third edition ; 
Thoughts on Church Government; A View of 
the Scripture Revelations concerning a Future 
State, laid before his Parishioners by a Coun- 
try Pastor, fifth edition ; Thoughts on the Sab- 
bath; Introductory Lessons on Christian Evi- 
dences; together with numerous Charges, Ser- 
mons, &c., on various points of Christian duty. 
Of his later works, are an admirable series of 
tracts, entitled Cautions for the Times, to meet 
the views presented in" the series issued at 
Oxford, and Annotations on Bacon's Essays, 
1857; this is one of his most valual)le works. 
Since his death his daughter has given to the 
world his thoughts from his Commonplace 
Book. 
2 Edinburgh Review, September, 1849. 



WHATELY. 595 

or more valuable. The highly ingenious ironical brochure, entitled Historic 
Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte, the essays above mentioned, On some of 
the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion, those On some of the Dangers to Chris- 
tian Faith, and Errors of Romanism, the work on the Kingdom of Christ, not to 
mention others, are well worthy of universal perusal. They abound in views 
both original and just, stated with all the author's aptness of illustration and 
transparency of language. We may remark, too, that in many of his occa- 
sional sermons he has incidentally added many most beautiful fragments to 
that ever-accumulating mass of internal evidence which the Scriptures them- 
selves supply in their structure, and which is evolved by diligent investigation 
of the relation and coherence of one part of them with another." 

Archbishop Whately was born in London, February 1, 1787. He was edu- 
cated at Oriel College, Oxford, and in 1810 obtained a prize for an English 
essay, " What are the Arts in the cultivation of which the Ancients were less 
successful than the Moderns?" The following year he was elected Fellow of 
Oriel, — then considered the highest honor of Oxford except the Provostship of 
the same college. In 1821 he was married to Mary, daughter of William Pope, 
Esq., of Hallingdon, Middlesex, by whom he had a son (Edward Whately, 
Archdeacon of Glendalough) and several daughters. In the ten succeeding 
years he published some of his most imiDortant works. In 1831 Earl Grey ap- 
pointed him to the See of Dublin, and soon after he was made one of the first 
Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. In this noble cause he 
labored with untiring assiduity for twenty years, devoting all the energies of 
his mind to its advancement, and composing several manuals of instruction 
for the use of the schools, such as those on Money Matters, on Reasoning, on 
The Evidences of Christianity , and on The British Constitution. 

In 1860 Di-. Whately became a widower, and soon his own health began to 
decline, and he died, after a lingering illness, at his episcopal residence, 
October 6, 1863. 

MIRACLES. 

In the case of Christianity, we cannot escape miracles, which- 
ever way we turn ; and the only question is, whether we will 
admit miracles wrought by a sufficient cause, and for a sufficient 
reason, or miracles wrought hy nothing at all, and /or nothing at 
all. Whosoever, for example, rejects as incredible the notion of 
there having been direct communication between God and man 
at any time, because we have no sensible proof of any such com- 
munication taking place now, must believe that man at first 
civilized himself. Now, every thing that we know of the laws of 
human mind leads us to judge that such a thing as this is im- 
possible ; and all experience tends to prove, that such a thing has 
never happened ; nor can a single instance be alleged — without 
manifestly begging the question — of any nation that ever of 
itself made the first steps from a savage to a civilized state. 
Again, whoever rejects as incredible the notion that Christianity 
first made its way by the evidence of miracles, must believe that 
Christ and His apostles did, without any superhuman powers, 
what we have the best reason for thinkinoj no man without such 



696 WHATELY. 

powers could do, and what certainly without such powers no 
other men in like circumstances have ever done. Ask any one 
whom you meet, Christian, Deist, or Atheist, who was the most 
remarkable person that ever lived, and who effected the greatest 
revolution that ever was effected in the religion of mankind; 
and, if not totally ignorant of history, he must at once answer, 
Jesus of Nazareth. And the next inquiry is. How came he to 
be such ? and how did a Jewish peasant overthrow the religion of 
the world, and establish His faith over the civilized nations, when 
no one else ever succeeded in such an attempt ? The miraculous 
occurrences recorded in the Bible are indeed extraordinary, and 
wonderful, and, in themselves, improbable ; but all of them put 
together are as nothing in point of strangeness compared with the 
only alternative, with what must be believed by any one who should 
thereupon resolve to reject those miraculous narratives. That a 
handful of Jewish peasants and fishermen should undertake to 
abolish the religions of the whole civilized world, and introduce a 
new one, in defiance of all the prejudices and all the power of 
this world arrayed against them ; that they should think to effect 
this by pretending to miraculous powers which they did not, and 
knew they did not, possess ; and that they should succeed in the 
attempt, — all this is surely many times mOre incredible than 
any thing and every thing recorded in our Scriptures. And no 
one should make a boast of his ^^ incredulity'^ in disbelieving some- •' 
thing that is very strange, while he is believing — as the only ! 
alternative — something incomparably more strange. But many 
persons are apt to forget — though it is self-evident on a moment's s 
reflection — that disbelieving is believing ; since to disbelieve any 
assertion is to believe its contradictory ; and whoever does this 
on slight grounds is both credulous and incredulous ; these 
being, in fact, one and the same habit of mind. 

A PRIMITIVE BISHOP. 

It seems plainly to have been at least the general, if not the 
universal, practice of the apostles, to appoint over each separate 
church a single individual as a chief governor, under the title of 
" anger (i. e. messenger or legate from the apostles) or " bishop," 
i. e. superintendent or overseer. A church and a diocese seem 
to have been for a considerable time coextensive and identical. 
And each church or diocese (and, consequently, each superin- 
tendent), though connected with the rest by ties of faith and 
hope and charity, seems to have been (as has been already ob- 
served) perfectly independent as far as regards any j)ower of 
control. 

The plan pursued by the apostles seems to have been, as has 
been above remarked, to establish a great number of small (in 



WHATELY. 



597 



comparison with modern churches), distinct, and independent 
communities, each governed by its own single bishop, consulting, 
no doubt, with his own presbyters, and accustomed to act in con- 
currence with them, and occasionally conferring with the brethren 
in other churches, but owing no submission to the rulers of any 
other church, or to any central common authority except the 
apostles themselves. And other points of difference might be 
added. 

Now, to vindicate the institutions of our own or of some other 
church, on the ground that they "are not in themselves super- 
stitious or ungodly," — that they are not at variance with gospel 
principles or with any divine injunction that was designed to be 
of universal obligation, — is intelligible and reasonable. But to 
vindicate them on the ground of the exact conformity — which it 
is notorious they do not possess — to the most ancient models, and 
even to go beyond this, and condemn all Christians whose insti- 
tutions and ordinances are not " one and utterly like" our own, 
on the ground of their departure from the apostolical precedents, 
which no church has exactly adhered to, does seem — to use no 
harsher expression — not a little inconsistent and unreasonable. 
And yet one may not unfrequently hear members of Episcopalian 
churches pronouncing severe condemnation on those of other 
communions, and even excluding them from the Christian body, 
on the ground, not of their not being under the best form of 
ecclesiastical government,^ but of their wanting the very essen- 
tials of a Christian church, — viz. the very same distinct orders in 
the hierarchy that the apostles appointed : and this, while the 
Episcopalians themselves have universally so far varied from the 
apostolical institutions as to have in one church several bishops; 
each of whom, consequently, differs in the office he holds, in a 
most important point, from one of the primitive bishops, as much 
as the governor of any one of our colonies does from a sovereign 
prince. 

Now, whether the several alterations and departures from the 
original institutions were or were not, in each instance, made on 
good grounds, in accordance with an altered state of society, is a 
question which cannot even be entertained by those who hold 
that no church is competent to vary at all from the ancient 
model. Their principle would go to exclude at once from the 
pale of Christ's church almost every Christian body since the 
first two or three centuries. 



1 " It is' remarkable that there are Presby- 
terians, also, who proceed on similar prin- 
ciples: who contend that originally the dis- 
tinctions between bishops and presbyters did 
not exist; and, consequently (not that episco- 



pacy is not essential to a church, but), that 
episcopal government is rti unwarrantable in- 
novation, — a usurpation, — a profane departure 
from the divine ordinances]" — Whatelxs 
Note. 



598 WHATELY. 

The edifice they overthrow crushes in its fall the blind cham- 
pion who has broken its pillars. — Kingdom of Christ. 

WHAT IS A CHRISriAN? 

There is a difference, and a wide one, between practising moral 
duties and being a Christian. Christianity is a religion of motives. 
It substitutes an eternal motive for an earthly one ; it substitutes 
'the love of God for the love of the world or the love of self. 
There may be, and are, many persons who jDractise temperance 
and other virtues which Christianity inculcates, but who never 
think of doing so because they are so inculcated. It would be as 
absurd to ascribe a knowledge of mechanics to savages because 
they employ the lever, or of the principles of astronomy to brutes 
because, in Avalking, they preserve the centre of gravity, as it is 
to call such persons Christians. A Christian is one whose motives 
are Christian faith and Christian hope, and who is, moreover, 
able to give a reason of the hope that is in him. 

SCIENCE AND SCRIPTURE. 

Some persons have imagined that we are bound to take our 
notions. of astronomy and of all other physical sciences from the 
Bible. And, accordingly; when astronomers discovered and 
proved that the earth turns round on its axis, and that the sun 
does not move round the earth, some cried out against this as 
profane, because Scripture speaks of the sun's rising and setting. 
And this probably led some astronomers to reject the Bible, be- 
cause they were taught that if they received that as a divine reve- 
lation, they must disbelieve truths which they had demonstrated. 
So, also, some have thought themselves bound to believe, if they 
receive Scripture at all, that the earth, and all the plants and 
animals that ever existed on it, must have been created within 
six days, of exactly the same length as our present days ; and 
this, even before the sun, by which we measure our days, is re- 
corded to have been created. Hence the discoveries made by 
geologists, which seem to prove that the earth and various races 
of animals must have existed a very long time before man existed, 
have been represented as completely inconsistent with any belief 
in Scripture. 

We may not stop to discuss the various objections — some of 
them more or less plausible, and others very Aveak — that have been 
brought — on grounds of science, or supposed science — against 
the Mosaic accounts of the creation, of the state of the early 
world, and of the Hood, and to bring forward the several answers 
that have been given to those objections. But it is important to 
lay down the principle on which either the Bible or any other 



WHATELY. 599 

writing or speech ought to be studied and understood, — namely, 
with a reference to the object jyroposed by the writer or speaker. 

For examj^le, if we bid any one proceed in a straight line from 
one place to another, and to take care to arrive before the sun 
goes down, he will rightly and fully understand us in reference 
to the practical object which alone we had in view. Now, we 
know that there cannot really be a straight line on the surface of 
the earth ; and that the sun does not really go clown, — only one 
portion of the earth is turned away from it. But whether the 
other party knows all this or not, matters nothing to our present 
object, which was not to teach him mathematics or astronomy, 
but to make him conform to our directions, which are equally 
intelligible to the learned and the unlearned. 

Now, the object of the Scripture revelation is to teach men, not 
astronomy or geology, or any other physical science, but religion. 
Its design was to inform men, not in what manner the world Avas 
made, but w^ho made it, and to lead them to worship Him, the 
Creator of the heavens and the earth, instead of worshipping His 
creatures — the heavens and earth themselves — as gods ; which is 
what the ancient heathen actually did. 

Although, therefore. Scripture gives very scanty and imperfect 
information respecting the earth and the heavenly bodies, and 
speaks of them in the language and according to the notions of 
the people of a rude age, still it fully effects the object for which 
it was given, when it teaches that the heavens and the earth are 
not gods to be worshipped, but that " God created the heavens and 
the earth," and that it is He who made the various tribes of ani- 
mals, and also man. But as for astronomy and geology and 
other sciences, men were left, when once sufficiently civilized to 
be capable of improving themselves, to make discoveries in them 
by the exercise of their own faculties. 



FRIENDSHIPS IN HEAVEN. 

I am convinced that the extension and perfection of friendship 
will constitute great part of the future happiness of the blest. 
Many have lived in various and distant ages and countries, per- 
fectly adapted (I mean not merely in their being generally esti- 
mable, but in the agreement of their tastes and suitableness of 
dispositions) for friendship with each other, but who, of course, 
could never meet in this world. Many a one selects, when he is 
reading history — a truly pious Christian, most especially in read- 
ing sacred history — some one or two favorite characters, with 
whom he feels that a personal acquaintance would have been 
peculiarly delightful to him. Why should not such a desire be 
realized in a future state ? A wish to see and personally know, 
for example, the Apostle Paul, or John, is the most likely to 



600 WHATELY. 

arise in the noblest and purest mind : I should be sorry to think 
such a wish absurd and presumptuous, or unlikely to be grati- 
fied. The highest enjoyment, doubtless, to the blest, will be the 
personal knowledge of their divine and beloved Master; yet I 
cannot but think that some part of their happiness will consist 
in an intimate knowledge of the greatest of his followers also ; 
and of those of them in particular whose peculiar qualities are, 
to each, the most peculiarly attractive. 

In this world, again, our friendships are limited not only to 
those who live in the same age and country, but to a small por- 
tion even of those who are not unknoAvn to us, and whom we 
know to be estimable and amiable, and who, we feel, might have 
been among our dearest friends. Our command of time and lei- 
sure to cultivate friendships imposes a limit to their extent : they 
are bounded rather by the occupation of our thoughts than of 
our affections. And the removal of such impediments in a better 
w^orld seems to me a most desirable and a most probable change. 

I see no reason, again, why those who have been dearest friends 
on earth should not, when admitted to that happy state, continue 
to be so, with full knowledge and recollection of their former 
friendship. If a man is still to continue (as there is every rea- 
son to suppose) a social being and capable of friendship, it seems 
contrary to all probability that he should cast off or forget his 
former friends, who are partakers Avith him of the like exalta- 
tion. He will, indeed, be greatly changed from what he was on 
earth, and unfitted, perhaps, for friendship with such a being as 
one of us is now ; but his friend will have undergone (by sup- 
position) a corresponding change.^ And as we have seen those 
who have been loving playfellows in childhood, grow up, if they 
grow up with good, and with like, dispositions, into still closer 
friendship in riper years, so also it is probable that when this our 
state of childhood shall be perfected, in the maturity of a better 
world, the like attachment will continue between those com- 
panions who have trod together the Christian path to glory, and 
have " taken sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of 
God as friends." A change to indifference towards those who 
have fixed their hearts on the same objects with ourselves during 
this earthly pilgrimage, and have given and received mutual aid 
during their course, is a change as little, I trust, to be expected, 
as it IS to be desired. It certainly is not such a change as the 
Scriptures teach us to prepare for. 



1 The same thought is beautifully expressed by one of the most excellent of sacred poets,— 
the author of The Christian Tear : — 

"That so, before the judgment-seat, 

Though changed and glorified each face, 
- Not unreniembcr'd we may meet, 
For endless ages to embrace." 



WHAT ELY. 601 



CONSISTENCY AND INCONSISTENCY. 

To censure a man ,as inconsistent when he alters his course of 
proceeding, his language, his opinions, &c., in conformity with a 
change of circumstances, is to censure him for that Avhich must 
be cc^itinually practised by every one who is not insane ; to cen, 
sure him for changing his mind on finding himself mistaken- 
though circumstances remain the same, is to censure him for 
what ought to be practised by every one who is not infallible ; 
and to censure him for holding contrary opinions at the same 
time, though this — and this only — may strictly and properly be 
called inconsistency, and ought sedulously to be avoided, is to 
misapply the censure, which would be better directed, not against 
the inconsistency of his notions with each other, but for the erro- 
neousness of those which are erroneous. The consistency with 
each other, of opinions that are all wrong, is far enough from 
improving the case. 

OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 

The main, and almost the universal, fallacy of antichristiaus 
is, in showing that there are objections against Christianity, and 
thence inferring that it should be rejected ; wlfen that which 
ought to have been proved is, that there are more or stronger 
objections against the receiving than the rejecting of it. At the 
first announcement of the gospel, when Jesus of Nazareth claimed 
to be the promised Deliverer, in whom all the nations of the 
earth were to be blessed, the burden of proof lay with Him. No 
one could be fairly called on to admit His pretensions, till He 
showed cause for believing in Him. If " He had not done among 
them the works which none other man did, they had not had 
sin." Now the case is reversed, and the religion exists, that is 
the phenomenon ; those who will not allow it to have come from 
God, are bound to solve it on some other hypothesis less open to 
objections. Infidels, when supposing it to have been a human 
contrivance, not established by miracles, are bound to give an 
explanation of the still greater miracle, — its having arisen and 
prevailed as it did, in defiance of all opposition, forcing men of 
all ranks and of all nations to disown the gods of their ancestors, 
and to adore a Jewish peasant who had been cut oS" by the most 
ignominious death. This explanation they have never given, 
though they have had eighteen hundred years to try ; and thus 
they have tacitly confessed that no hypothesis can be devised 
which will not be open to greater objections than lie against 
Christianity. 

61 



602 



THACKERAY. 



DUTY OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 

It is said that, some years ago, there was a bridge at Bath in 
so crazy a condition that persons chose rather to make a long 
circuit than run the risk of crossing it. One day, however, a 
very nervous lady, hurrying home to dress for the evening, came 
suddenly upon the spot, without, till that moment, remembering 
the danger. What was she to do? If she went on, the frail 
arch might give way under her ; to go round would be fatiguing, 
and attended with loss of time. She stood for some minutes 
trembling in anxious hesitation ; at last a lucky thought occurred 
to her : she called for a sedan-chair, and was carried over in that 
conveyance ! 

Now, when people, who think to escape the danger of having 
to judge for themselves in religious matters, by choosing to take 
some guide as an infallible one, and believe or disbelieve as he 
bids them, thus adding, to the undiminished previous chances of 
error, the additional chances against the authority they have 
chosen : what is this but putting, not only their own weight, but 
that of the sedan-chair also, on the tottering arch ? 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 1811-1863. j 

This distinguished novelist was born in Calcutta^ in 1811. In his seyenth 
year he was sent to England to be educated, and was placed at the school of 
the Charter-IIouse,2 the well-known Greyfriars of his stories. Thence he went 
to Cambridge, which he left without taking a degree. On coming of age he 
found himself in possession of twenty thousand pounds, and he entered upon 
life with this ample fortune, besides health, strength, a noble figure, and an 
excellent genius. Not wishing to lead an idle life, he chose the profession of 
an artist, to perfect himself in which he visited Italy and Germany; but, as 
has been well said, "it was destined that he should paint in colors which will 
never crack and never need restoration ;" though the influence of his artistic 
studies may clearly be traced in his writings. When about twenty-seven years 
old, fortunately for his fame, he lost nearly all his fortune by speculations, and 
therefore began to devote himself to literature for a support. His first effusions 
appeared as tales and criticisms in Fraser's Magazine, under the names of 
Michael Angela Titmarsh and George Fitz-Boodle, Esq. From an early date he 
was connected with Punch, at first as the Fat Contributor, and soon after as the 



1 His father, who was the son of the Rev. 
Richard Thackeray of Iladley, in Middlesex, 
then held a post in Calcutta iu the civil service 
of the East India Company. 

2 This is a hospital, chapel, and school-house. 



in Aldersgate Street, London, instituted in 
1611 by Sir Thomas Sutton. Among the emi- 
nent persons educated here may be named Dr. 
Barrow, Blackstone, Addison, Steele, John 
Wesley, George Grote, &c. 



THACKERAY. 



603 



author of the inimitable Jeames's Diarj/^ and The Snob Papers. "If satire could 
do aught to check the pride of the vulgar upstart, or shame social hypocrisy 
into truth and simplicity, these writings would accomplish the end." 

Thackeray's name now became known, and his writings sought after. In 
1846 appeared his first, and perhaps greatest, novel, Vanity Fair,^ which gave 
him rank at once as one of the greatest living Avriters of fiction. Nowhere is 
Thackeray's peculiar power more concentrated than in this novel, and the 
heroine — the cool "woman of the world" Becky Sharp, an unprincipled gov- 
erness, elbowing her way into fashionable life — will long remain the type of 
feminine intellect without virtue. In 1849 appeared Pendennis,^ the hero of 
which is an accomplished, gentleman-like " man of the world," without much 
moral principle to guide him. In 1851 he delivered at "Willis's Rooms" a 
course of Six Lectures on the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century, com- 
mencing the course with Swift and ending with Goldsmith.'* Towards the 
close of 1852 appeared Esmond, which introduces us to the society of Addison 
and Steele; and after that he came over to our country and delivered his 
lectures upon The Four Georges.^ He was everywhere received with great 
enthusiasm, and his lectures were numerously attended, and elicited the 
warmest commendations. On his return. The Newcomes^ and The Virginians'' 
appeared, and a new set of lectures on The Four Georges. In 1860 he became 
the editor of the Cornhill Magazine, which rapidly attained a degree of success 
without example in English magazine literature. Lovel the Widower and The 
Adventures of Philip appeared in its pages; but they are not to be compared 
with his previous novels. The last of his published works was Roundabout 
Papers, consisting of twenty papers which appeared from time to time in the 
Cornhill, and in which are seen much of the irony, humor, and shrewdness of 
the author. He died on the 24th of December, 1863,'^ 

The precise place which Thackeray is destined to hold in English literature 
it is impossible now to predict; though, without doubt, he will stand somewhere 
among the foremost of his class, and will probably be included among the 



1 " Jeames" is a London flunkey, elevated to 
sudden wealth by speculation in railway shares, 
— an excellent counterpart to many a " shoddy" 
in our country, who has become rich by gov- 
ernment contracts during the " slaA'eholders' 
rebellion." 

2 Its object is to hold up before the world 
'• a severely truthful representation of its own 
painted iniquity." 

8 Between these two, or preceding Vanity 
Fail; he wrote some of his smaller works, 
such as The Paris Sketch-Book, The Second 
Funeral of Napolemi, The Fatal Boots, The 
Hoggarty Diamond, The Irish Sketch-Book, the 
Journey from Cornhill to Cairo, &c. 

* "All that was most brilliant in the capital 
was assembled to hear him. Amidst a throng 
of nobles and beauties and men of fashion 
were Carlyle and Macaulay, Hallam with his 
venerable head, and Charlotte Bronte, whose 
own fame was just at its height, and who saw 
in the lecturer her ideal of" an elevated and 
high-minded master of literary art. The lec- 
tures were thoroughly appreciated. Every- 
body was delighted to see the great masters 
of English of a past age brought to life again 
in their habits as they lived, and endowed with 



the warm human reality of the lecturer's 
Dobbins, and Warringtons, and Pendennises." 
— Hannay. 

6 See the epigram on the Four Georges, by 
Walter Savage Landor, p. 537. 

6 The moral of which is " the misery occa- 
sioned by forced or ill-assorted marriages." 

1 A vivid picture of English life and manners 
during the middle of the eighteenth century. 

8 " It is long since England has lost such a 
son : it will be long before she has such another 
to lose. He was indeed emphatically English, 
— English as distinct from Scotch, no less than 
English as distinct from Continental. _J?lie. 
highest purely English novelist since Fielding, 
he combined Addison's love of virtue with. 
Johnson's hatred oT cant; Horace Walpole's 
lynx eye foFthe mean and the ridiculous, with 
the gentleness and wide charity for mankind, 
as a whole, of Goldsmith. Non omnis mortuus 
est. He will be remembered in his due suc- 
cession -with these men for ages to come, as 
long as the hymn of praise rises in the old 
Abbey of Westminstei-, and wherever the 
English tongue is native to men, from the 
banks of the Ganges to those of the Missis- 
sippi." — IIannay. 



604 



THACKERAY. 



great English humorists whose characteristics he describes in his scholarly, 
brilliant, and appreciative lectures. But that he will hold a place on a level 
with Dickens, as some maintain, we do not believe. He has little of Dickens's 
geniality ; for his moral nature, as a writer, was inferior. Irony, satire, sar- 
casm, were his chief weapons : he seemed too fond of trifling with the gentler 
humanities of life and of glorying in displaying a poor opinion of society. 
It was said that most of the personages of his stories were worthy of having 
their portraits drawn for the Rogues' Gallery. On the other hand, to how 
many persons in all ranks of life does Dickens introduce us, and especially to 
such as will draw out from us all the best sympathies of our nature, so that 
we love to recall and muse over his creations, while we care not to meditate 
upon those of Thackeray.^ 

LADY CLARA NEWC03IE. 

Poor Lady Clara ! I fancy a better lot for you than that to 
which fate handed you over. I fancy there need have been no 
deceit in your fond, simple little heart, could it but have been 
given into other keeping. But you were consigned to a master 
whose scorn and cruelty terrified you, under whose sardonic 
glances your scared eyes were afraid to look up, and before whose 
gloomy coldness you dared not be happy. Suppose a little plant ; 
very frail and delicate from the first, but that might have bloomed 
sweetly and borne fair flowers, had it received warm shelter and 
kindly nurture; suppose a young creature taken out of her home, 
and given over to a hard master, whose caresses are as insulting 
as his neglect ; consigned to cruel usage, to weary loneliness, to 
bitter insulting recollections of the past; suppose her schooled 
into hypocrisy by tyranny, — and then, quick, let us hire an ad- 
vocate to roar out to a British jury the wrongs of her injured 
husband, to paint the agonies of his bleeding heart (if Mr. Ad- 
vocate gets plaintiff's brief in time, and before defendant's attor- 
ney has retained him), and to show society injured through him! 
Let us console that martyr, I say, with thumping damages; and 
as for the woman — the guilty wretch ! — let us lead her out and 
stone her. * * * So Lady Clara flies from the custody of her 
tyrant ; but to what a rescue ? The very man who loves her and 
gives her asylum, pities and deplores her. She scarce dares to 
look out of the windows of her new home upon the world, lest it 
should know and reproach her. All the sisterhood of friendship 



1 Read Bayne's Essays, first series, chap. vii. ; 
also, an essay in George Brimley's Essays, and 
A Memoir, by James Haunay, also, North 
British Review, xl. 210, and xlvii. 197, and in 
American Literary Gazette for January, 1864. 
The Edinbitrgh Review, of January, 185J:, thus 
epeaks: — "As to Thackeray's merits, it is ad- 
mitted that he is unrivalled by any living 
writer as an inventor and describer of cha- 
racter ; that he has penetrated into the lowest 



cells of pride, vanity, and selfishness, and laid 
open some of the secrets of the human prison- 
house which never were revealed before. Every 
reader admires the ease and vigor of his dia- 
logue, its sparkling wit and its humor, some- 
times broad, sometimes delicate, but alwaj-s 
effective." See, in Cornhill Magazine for Feb- 
ruary, 1864, two prose articles, by Dickens 
and Anthony Trollope, and a poem by Lord 
Houghton. 



THACKERAY. 605 

is cut off from her. If she dares to go abroad, she feels the sneer 
of the world as she goes through it, and knows that malice and 
scorn whisper behind her. People, as criminal, but undiscovered, 
make room for her as if her touch were pollution. She knows 
she has darkened the lot and made wretched the home of the man 
she loves best, that his friends who see her treat her with but 
a doubtful respect, and the domestics who attend her with a sus- 
picious obedience. In the country lanes, or the streets of the 
country town, neighbors look aside as the carriage passes in which 
sRe is splendid and lonely. Rough hunting companions of her 
husband's come to the table ; he is driven perforce to the company 
of flatterers and men of inferior sort ; his equals, at least in his 
own home, wall not live with him. She would be kind, perhaps, 
and charitable to the cottagers around her, but she fears to visit 
them, lest they too should scorn her. The clergyman who dis- 
tributes her charities blushes and looks awkward on passing her 
in the village, if he should be w^alking with his wife or one of 
his children. 

ft WOMEN— THE BAD— THE GOODA 

Sir, I do not mean to tell you that there are no women in the 
world, vulgar and ill-humored, rancorous and narrow-minded, 
mean schemers, son-in-law-hunters, slaves of fashion, hypocrites ; 
but I do respect, admire, and almost worship good women ; and 
I think there is a very fair number of such to be found in this 
world, and, I have no doubt, in every educated Englishman's 
circle of society, whether he finds that circle in palaces in Bel- 
gravia and May Fair, in snug little suburban villas, in ancient 
comfortable old Bloomsbury, or in back parlors behind the shop. 
It has been my fortune to meet with excellent English ladies in 
every one of these places, — wives graceful and affectionate, 
matrons tender and good, daughters happy and pure-minded, and 
I urge the society of such to you, because I defy you to think 
evil in their company. Walk into the drawing-room of Lady Z., 
that great lady : look at her charming face, and hear her voice. 
You know that she can't but be good, with such a face and such 
a voice. She is one of those fortunate beings on whom it has 
pleased Heaven to bestow all sorts of its most precious gifts and 
richest worldly favors. With what grace she receives you ! with 
what a frank kindness and natural sweetness and dignity ! Her 
looks, her motions, her words, her thoughts, all seem to be beau- 
tiful and harmonious quite. See her with her children: what 
woman can be more simple and loving ? After you have talked 
to her for a while, you very likely find that she is ten times as 



1 Charlotte Bronte says, " As usual, he is unjust to women, — quite unjust." This extract 
does not look like injustice. 

51* 



606 THACKERAY. 

well read as you are : she has a hundred accomplishments, which 
she is not in the least anxious to show off, and makes no more 
account of them than of her diamonds, or of the splendor round 
about her, — to all of which she is born, and has a happy, admi- 
rable claim of nature and possession, — admirable and happy for 
her and for us too ; for is it not a happiness for us to admire her? 
Does anybody grudge her excellence to that paragon ? Sir, we 
may be thankful to be admitted to contemplate such consummate 
goodness and beauty ; and as, in looking at a fine landscape or a 
fine work of art, every generous heart must be delighted ai!d 
improved, and ought to feel grateful afterwards, so one may feel 
charmed and thankful for having the opportunity of knowing an 
almost perfect w^oman. Madam, if the gout and the custom of 
the world permitted, I would kneel down and kiss the hem of 
your ladyship's robe. To see your gracious face is a comfort ; to 
see you walk to your carriage is a holiday. Drive her faithfully, 
O thou silver-wigged coachman ! drive to all sorts of splendors 
and honors and royal festivals. And for us, let us be glad that 
■\ve should have the privilege to admire her. 

Now, transport yourself in spirit, my good Bob, into another 
drawing-room. There sits an old lady of more than fourscore 
years, serene and kind, and as beautiful in her age now as in her 
youth, when history toasted her. What has she not seen and is 
she not ready to tell ? All the fame and wit, all the rank and 
beauty of more than half a century have passed through those 
rooms where you have the honor of making your best bow. She 
is as simple now^ as if she had never had any flattery to dazzle 
her : she is never tired of being pleased and being kind. Can 
that have been any thing but a good life w'hich, after more than 
eighty years of it are spent, is so calm ? Could she look to the 
end of it so cheerfully if its long course had not been pure? 
Respect her, I say, for being so happy, now that she is old. We 
do not know what goodness and charity, what affections, what 
trials, may have gone to make that charming sweetness of temper 
and complete that perfect manner. But if we do not admire and 
reverence such an old age as that, and get good from contem- 
j^lating it, w hat are we to respect and admire ? 

Or shall we walk through the shop (while N. is recommend- 
ing a tall copy- to an amateur, or folding up a twopenny worth of 
letter-paper, and bowing to a poor customer in a jacket and apron 
with just as much respectful gravity as he would show while 
waiting upon a duke\ and see Mrs. N. playing wdth the child in 
the back parlor until N. shall come in to tea ? They drink tea at 
five o'clock, and are actually as well bred as -those gentlefolks 
who dine three hours later. Or will you please to step into Mrs. 
J.'s lodgings, who is waiting, and at w^ork, until her husband 
comes home from Chambers? She blushes and puts the work 



THACKERAY. 607 

away on hearing the knock, but, when she sees who the visitor is, 
she takes it with a smile from behind the sofa-cushion, and behold, 
it is one of J.'s waistcoats on which she is sewing buttons. She 
might have been a countess blazing in diamonds, had fate so 
willed it, and the higher her station the more she would have 
adorned it. But she looks as charming while plying her needle 
as the great lady in the palace whose equal she is in beauty, in 
goodness, in high-bred grace and simplicity, — at least, I can't 
fancy her better, or any peeress being more than her peer." 

LAST DAYS OF GEORGE THE THIRD. 

Of little comfort were the king's sons to the king. But the 
pretty Amelia^ was his darling ; and the little maiden, prattling 
and smiling in the fond arm of that old father, is a sweet image 
to look on. She wrote verses herself; and there are some pretty, 
plaintive lines attributed to her, which are more touching than 
better poetry : — 

" Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, 
I laugh' d, and danced, and talk'd, and sung ; 
And, proud of heakh, of freedom vain, 
Dream'd not of sorrow, care, or pain ; 
Concluding, in those hours of glee, 
That all the world was made for me. 

" But when the hour of trial came. 
When sickness shook this trembling frame, 
When folly's gay pursuits were o'er. 
And I could sing and dance no more, — 
It then occurr'd, how sad 'twould be 
Were this world only made for me." 

The poor soul quitted it ; and ere yet she was dead the agonized 
father w^as in such a state that the officers round about him were 
obliged to set watchers over him, and from November, 1810, 
George III. ceased to reign. All the world knows the story of 
his malady ; all history presents no sadder figure than that of the 
old man, blind and deprived of reason, wandering through the 
rooms of his palace, addressing imaginary parliaments, reviewing 
fancied troops, holding ghostly courts. I have seen his picture 
as it was taken at this time, hanging in the apartment of his 
daughter, the Landgravine of Hesse-Hombourg, — amidst books 
and AVindsor furniture, and a hundred fond reminiscences of her 
English home. The poor old father is represented in a purple 
gown, his snowy beard falling over his breast, — the star of his 
famous Order still idly shining on it. He was not only sightless 
— he became utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all sound of 

1 This was his j-oungest child, who clied iu ISll. 



608 THACKERAY. 

human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God, were taken 
from him. Some slight lucid moments he had ; in one of which 
the queen, desiring to see him, entered the room, and found him 
singing a hymn and accompanying himself at the harpsichord. 
When he had finished, he knelt down and prayed aloud for her, 
and then for his family, and then for the nation, concluding with 
a prayer for himself, that it might please God to avert his heavy 
calamity from him, but, if not, to give him resignation to submit. 
He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled. 

What preacher need moralize on this story ? what words save 
the simplest are requisite to tell it? It is too terrible for tears. 
The thought of such a misery smites me down in submission 
before the Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch Supreme over 
empires and republics, the inscrutable Dispenser of life, death, 
happiness, victory. "O brothers !" I said to those who heard me 
first in America, — " O brothers ! speaking the same dear mother 
tongue ; O comrades ! enemies no more, let us take a mournful 
hand together as we stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce 
to battle ! Low he lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, 
and who was cast lower than the poorest : dead, whom millions 
prayed for in vain. Driven oft' his throne ; bufteted by rude 
hands ; with his children in revolt ; the darling of his old age 
killed before him untimely ; our Lear hangs over her breathless 
lips, and cries, ' Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little !' 

*Vex not his ghost — oh! let him pass — he hates him 
That would upon the rack of this tough world 
Stretch him out longer !' 

Hush! Strife and Quarrel, over the solemn grave! Sound, 
Trumpets, a mournful march ! Fall, Dark Curtain, upon his 
pageant, his pride, his grief, his awful tragedy !" 

LOYALTY TO TRUTH.^ 

I had thought that in these lectures I had spoken in terms 
not of disrespect or unkindness, and in feelings and in language 
not un-English, of Her Majesty the Queen ; and wherever I have 
had to mention her name, whether it was upon the banks of the 
Clyde or upon those of the Mississippi, whether it was in New 
England or in Old England, whether it was in some great hall in 
London to the artisans of the suburbs of the metropolis, or to 
the politer audiences of the western end, — wherever I had to 
mention her name it was received with shouts of applause and 
with the most hearty cheers. And why was this ? It was not on 
account of the speaker ; it was on account of the truth ; it was 

1 On account of his severe strictures upon 1 alty. This charge he thus confuted at a dinner 
the Georges, Thackeray was accused of disloy- j given to him in Edinburgh in 1867. 



ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. 



000 



because the English and the Americans — the people of New 
Orleans a year ago, the people of Aberdeen a week ago — all 
received and acknowledged with due allegiance the great claims 
to honor which that lady has who worthily holds that great and 
awful situation which our Queen occupies. It is my loyalty that 
is called in question, and it is my loyalty that I am trying to 
plead to you. Suppose, for example, in America — in Philadel- 
phia or in New York — that I had spoken about George IV. in 
terms of praise and affected reverence : do you believe they would 
have hailed his name with cheers, or have heard it with any 
thing like respect ? They would have laughed in my face if I 
had so spoken of him. They know what I know and you know, 
and what numbers of squeamish loyalists who affect to cry out 
against my lectures know, that that man's life was not a good 
life, — that that king was not such a king as we ought to love, or 
regard, or honor. And I believe, for my part, that in speaking 
the truth, as we hold it, of a bad sovereign, we are paying no 
disrespect at all to a good one. Far from it. On the contrary, 
we degrade our own honor and the sovereign's by unduly and 
unjustly praising him ; and the mere slaverer and flatterer is one 
who comes forward, as it were, with flash notes, and pays with 
false coin his tribute to Caesar. I don't disguise that I feel some- 
how on my trial here for loyalty, for honest English feeling. 



ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER, 1S35-18GJ^. 

This gifted poetess was the eldest daughter of Bryan Waller Procter, and was 
born in the year 1835. We know but little of the incidents of her life. She 
first attracted notice about 1858 by two volumes of poems, entitled Legends and 
Lyrics, which were followed by A Chaplet of Verse, 1862. She also co-ntributed 
to some of the monthly magazines, and was one of the writers in the Victoria 
Rcgia, a volume containing a collection of poems from living authors, issued 
from the "Victoria Press." Slj^ died February 2, 1864.1 



1 The following beautiful notice of her, by 
Charles Dickens, prefixed to an illustrated 
edition of her Lyrics, deserves a place here : — 
"Tn the spring of 1853, as conductor of House- 
hold Words, I noticed a short poem among the 
contributions, very different, as I thought, 
from the shoal of verses perpetually setting 
through the office of such a periodical, and 
possessing much more merit. Its authoress 
was quite unknown to me. She was one Miss 
Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; 
and she was to be addressed by letter, if ad- 
dressed at all. at a circulating Hbrary in the 
wet tern district of London. Through this 
channel Miss Berwick was informed that her 
poem was accepted, and was invited to send 
another. She complied, and became a regular 



and frequent contributor, but she herself was 
never seen. * * This went on until Decem- 
ber, 1854, when the Christmas number was 
sent to press. Happening to l)e going to dino 
that day with an old and dear friend, distin- 
guished in literature as Barry Cornwall, I 
took with me an early proof of that number, 
and remarked, as I laid it on the drawing- 
room table, that it contained a very pretty 
poem written by a certain Miss Berwick. Next 
day brought me the disclosure that I had so 
spoken of the poem to the mother of its writer, 
and in the writer's presence," &c. He then 
gives a beautiful sketch of her fine character, 
which I wish I had room to insert. Ticknor 
& Fields, Boston, have published a very hand- 
some edition of her Legends and Lyrics, 1865. 



610 



ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. 



ONE B Y ONE. 



One by one the sands are flowing, 
One by one the moments fall ; 

Some are coming, some are going ; 
Do not strive to grasp them all. 

One by one thy duties wait thee, 
Let thy whole strength go to each ; 

Let no future dreams elate thee. 
Learn thou first what these can 
teach. 

One by one (bright gifts from Heaven) 
Joys are sent thee here below ; 

Take them readily when given, 
Eeady too to let them go. 

One by one thy griefs shall meet thee, 
Do not fear an armed band ; 

One will fade as others greet thee ; 
Shadows passing through the land. 



Do not look at life's long sorrow ; 

See how small each moment's pain ; 
God will help thee for to-morrow, 

So each day begin again. 

Every hour that fleets so slowly 
Has its task to do or bear ; 

Luminous the crown, and holy, 
When each gem is set with care. 

Do not linger with regretting, 
Or for passing hours despond ; 

Nor tlie daily toil forgetting, 
Look too eagerly beyond. 

Hours are golden links, God's token, 
Keaching heaven ; but one by one 

Take them, lest the chain be broken 
Ere the pilgrimage be done. 



LIFE AND DEATH. 

"What is Life, father?" 

"A battle, my child, 

Where the strongest lance may fail. 
Where the wariest eyes may be laeguiled. 

And the stoutest heart may quail. 
Where the foes are gather' d on every hand, 

And rest not day or night, 
And the feeble little ones must stand 

In the thickest of the tiglit." 

"What is Death, father?" 

" The rest, my child. 

When the strife and the toil are o'er ; 
The angel of God, wlio, calm and mild. 

Says we need fight no more ; 
Who, driving away the demon band. 

Bids the din of the battle cease ; 
Takes banner and spear from ojjr failing hand, 

And proclaims an eternal peace." 

"Let me die, father! I tremble, and fear 

To yield in that terrible strife !" 
"The crown must be won for heaven, dear. 

In the battle-field of life : 
My child, though thy foes are strong and tried, 

He loveth the weak and small ; 
The angels of heaven are on thy side 

And God is over all !" 



ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. 611 



THE CRADLE-SONG OF THE POOR. 

Hush ! I cannot bear to see thee 

Stretch thy tiny hands in vain ; 
Dear, I have no bread to give thee, 

Nothing, child, to ease thy pain ! 
When God sent thee first to bless me, 

Proud, and thankful too, was I ; 
Now, my darling, I, thy mother, 

Almost long to see thee die. 

Sleep, my darling, thou art weary ; 
God is good, but life is dreary. 

I have watch' d thy beauty fading, 

And thy strength sink, day by day, 
Soon, I know, will want and fever 

Take thy little life away. 
Famine makes thy father reckless, 

Hope has left both him and me ; 
AVe could suffer all, my baby. 

Had we but a crust for thee. 

Sleep, my darling, thou art weary ; 
God is good, but life is dreary. 

Better thou shouldst perish early, 

Starve so soon, my darling one, 
Than in helpless sin and sorrow 

Vainly live as I have done. 
Better that thy angel spirit 

With my joy, my peace, were flown, 
Than thy heart grew cold and careless. 

Reckless, hopeless, like my own. 

Sleep, my darling, thou art weary ; 
God is good, but life is dreary. 

I am wasted, dear, with hunger, 

And my brain is all opprest, 
I have scarcely strength to press thee, 

Wan and feeble, to my breast. 
Patience, baby, God will help us, 

Death will come to thee and me, 
He will take us to his heaven, 

Where no want or pain can be. 

Sleep, mv darling, thou art weary ; 
God is good, but life is dreary. 

Such the plaint that, late and early, 

Did we listen, we might hear 
Close beside us,— but the thunder 

Of a city dulls our ear. 
Every heart, as God's bright angel, 

Can bid one such sorrow cease ; 
God has glory when His children 

Bring His poor ones joy and peace ! 
Listen, nearer while she sings 
Sounds the fluttering of wings ! 



612 



LAND OR. 



WORDS. 



Words are lighter than the cloud-foam 
Of the restless ocean spray ; 

Vainer than the trembling shadow 
That the next hour steals away. 

By the fall of summer rain-drops 
Is the air as deeply stirr'd ; 

And the rose-leaf that we tread on 
Will outlive a word.. 

Yet, on the dull silence breaking 
With a lightning flash, a word, 

Bearing endless desolation 

On its blighting wings, I heard : 

Earth can forge no keener weapon, 
Dealing surer death and pain, 

And the cruel echo answer'd 
Through long years again. 

I have known one word hang star-like 
O'er a dreary waste of years. 

And it only shone the brighter 
Look'd at through a mist of tears; 

While a weary wanderer gather' d 
Hope and heart on life's dark way, 

By its faithful promise, shining 
Clearer day by day. 



I have known a spirit, calmer 
Than the calmest lake and clear 

As the heavens that gazed upon it, 
With no wave of hope or fear ; 

But a storm had swept across it, 
And its deepest depths were stirr'd 

(Never, never more to slumber), 
Only by a word. 

I have known a word more gentle 
Than the breath of summer air ; 

In a listening heart it nestled, 
And it lived forever there. 

Not the beating of its prison 
Stirr'd it ever, night or day ; 

Only with the heart's last throbbing 
Could it fade away. 

Words are mighty, words are living : 
Serpents with their venomous stings, 
Or bright angels, crowding round us. 
With heaven's light upon their 
wings ; 
Every word has its own spirit, 

True or false, that never dies ; 
Every word man's lips have utter'd 
Echoes in God's skies. 



WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR, 1775-1861 

The author of Imaginary Conversations was born in "Warwick, January 30, 
1775. He was sent first to Eugby, and afterwards to Trinity College, Oxford; 
at both which places he proved insubordinate, and never took a degree. He 
would not study a profession, but settled at Swansea, Wales, on a small income 
allowed him by his father, devoting his time to classical and general literature. 
Subsequently he came into possession of a large estate, which made him en- 
tirely independent, and enabled him to indulge his propensity to literature, 
and perhaps contributed to that defiant species of independence which, some- 
what developed in early life, became characteristic of the man. In 1795 he 
published A Collection of Poems; in 1798, Gehir, a sort of epic poem; in 1800, 
Foemsfrom the Arabic and Persian; and in 1835, Count Julian, a Tragedy, and 
other Poem.s. In 1811 he married, at Bath, a lady of German parentage: but 
BO fierce and irritable was his temper, and so little under control, that they 
Boon separated; and in 1815 he went to reside in Italy, chiefly at Florence. 

In 1824 appeared the first series of Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men 
and Statesmen, three volumes; and in 1829, the second series, two volumes. 
This is the work on which his fame as a writer must rest. In 1836 appeared 
his Pericles and Aspasia, two volumes ; and in 1839, two dramas, Andrea of Hun- ^ 
gary, and Giovanna of Naples. Soon after this, he came back to England and 



LAND OR. 



613 



Bettled at Bath. In 1846 appeared his collected works, in two volumes, royal 
octavo, and in 1853, Popery, British and Foreign, and Last Fruit off an Old 
Tree. In 1857 he published a pamphlet exposing the conduct of a certain 
lady of Bath. This was construed into a libel, and accordingly he was in- 
dicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of £1000.1 He then retired 
to Florence, where he spent the remainder of his days, and died on the 17th 
of September, 1864, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. Such are the brief out- 
lines of his varied, eccentric, and in many respects unhappy life. 

As a poet of originality and power, Mr. Landor takes a very respectable rank, 
though he never will be pojxilar. But it is as a prose-writer that he is most 
favorably known now, as he will be by posterity. His Imaginary Conversations 
is a very remarkable book. It consists of dialogues between some of the most 
remarkable personages of all ranks and callings in ancient and modern times. 
The author, in a surprising manner, throws himself completely into the cha- 
racter he would represent to us, and catches fully the spirit of the age in which 
he lived. It is a book replete with sound wisdom; and, as to style, all is elabo- 
rate, fastidious, and classical.^ 

The best of the dialogues are those between "Lord Brooke and Sir Philip 
Sidney;" "Southey and Porson," on the merits of Wordsworth ; "Queen Eliza- 
beth and Cecil;" "Eoger Aseham and Lady Jane Grey;" "Dr. Johnson and 
Home Tooke;" "Marcus Tullius and Quintus Cicero;" "Barrow and Newton;" 
"Milton and Andrew Marvel;" "Andrew Marvel and Bishop Parker." But, 
where all are so good, it seems invidious to particularize. The following will 
give a good idea of Mr. Laudor's manner : — 



ROGER ASCHAM AND LADY JANE GREY. 

Ascham. Thou art going, my dear young lady, into a most 
awful state : thou art passing into matrimony and great wealth. 
God hath willed it : submit in thankfulness. Thy affections are 
rightly placed and well distributed. Love is a secondary passion, 
in those who love most, a primary in those who love least. He 



1 In 1858 appeared an octavo volume of hete- 
rogeneous poems, numbered from 1 to 187, en- 
titled Dry Sticks Fagoted. Some of these poems 
contained, in anonymous allusions, the gist of 
the libellous pamphlet. 

2 " What a weighty book," exclaims the Edin- 
hurgh Review, "these Conversatimis make! 
How rich in scholarship; how correct, con- 
cise, and pure in style; how full of imagina- 
tion, wit, and humor ; how well informed, how 
bold in speculation, how various in interest, 
how universal in sympathy! In these one 
hundred and twenty-five Dialogues, the most 
familiar and the most august shapes of the Past 
are reanimated with vigor, grace, and beauty. 
Its long-dead ashes rekindle suddenly their 
wonted fires, and again shoot up into warmth 
and brightness. ' Large utterances,' musical 
and varied voices, ' thoughts that breathe' for 
the world's advancement, 'words that burn' 
against the world's oppression, sound on 
throughout these lofty and earnest pages." — 
Edinburgh Revieiv, Ixxxiii. 489. 

"For several years Mr. Landor spent his 
winters iu Bath,— a city which he thoroughly 



admired as the nearest approach in England 
to his much-beloved Florence; and there, 
among his books and pictures, he passed the 
autumn and winter months. His' figure was 
known to every one, though his acquaintance 
was extended to very few. Ill dressed, with a 
slouch-hat, frowning, absorbed, and silent, 
grinding Hellenics between his teeth (those 
white and amazing teeth of which he was so 
proud), he trudged along the street followed 
by a sparkling little dog, which snapped and 
barked at every one to whom its master 
chanced to give a word." 

" A grim and unjustifiable sarcasm launched 
against a lady who had once been his friend 
brought him into trouble before a court of law. 
There is no need to tell the story over again. 
Landor had to quit Bath forever; his books 
and pictures were dispersed by the hammer, 
and the old man found his rest iu Florence, — 
his former and favorite abode: he bought 
more books and pictures, curtained his rooms, 
reared another dog, trained a vine about his 
windows, and set his writing-desk in order." — 
Athenseum., October 1, 1864. 



52 



614 LAND OB. 

who is insiDired by it in a high degree, is inspired by honor in a 
higher : it never reaches its plenitude of growth and perfection 
but in the most exalted minds. Alas ! alas ! 

Jane. What aileth my virtuous Ascham ? what is amiss ? why 
do I tremble ? 

Ascham. I remember a sort of prophecy, made three years ago : 
it is a prophecy of thy condition and of my feelings on it. Recol- 
lectest thou who wrote, sitting upon the sea-beach the evening 
after an excursion to the Isle of Wight, these verses ? — 

"Invisibly bright water! so like air 
On looking down I fear'd thou couldst not bear 
My little bark, of all light barks most light, 
And look'd again, and drew me from the sight, 
And, hanging back, breathed each fresh gale aghast, 
And held the bench, not to go on so fast." 

Jane. I was very childish when I composed them ; and, if I 
had thought any more about the matter,. I should have hoped 
you had been too generous to keep them in your memory as wit- 
nesses against me. 

Ascham. Nay, they are not much amiss for so young a girl ; 
and there being so few of them, I did not reprove thee. Half an 
hour, I thought, might have. been spent more unprofitably ; and 
I now shall believe it firmly, if thou wilt but be led by them to 
meditate a little on the similarity of situation in which thou then 
wert to what thou art now in. 

Jane. I will do it, and whatever else you command ; for I am 
weak by nature and very timorous, unless where a strong sense 
of duty holdeth.and supporteth me. There God acteth, and not. 
his creature. Those were with me at sea who would have been 
attentive to me if I had seemed to be afraid, even though wor- 
shipful men and women were in the company ; so that something 
more powerful threw my fear overboard. Yet I never will go 
again upon the water. 

Ascham. Exercise that beauteous couple, that mind and body, 
much and variously ; but at home, at home, Jane ! indoors, and 
about things indoors ; for God is there too. We have rocks and 
quicksands on the banks of our Thames, O lady ! such as Ocean 
never heard of; and many (who knows how soon?) may be en- 
gulfed in the current under their garden-walls. 

Jane. Thoroughly do I now understand you. Yes, indeed, I 
have read evil things of courts ; but I think nobody can go out] 
bad w^ho entereth good, if timely and true warning shall hav( 
been given. 

Ascham.. I see perils on perils which thou dost not see, albeit 
thou art wiser than thy poor old master. And it is not because 
Love hath blinded thee, for that surpasseth his supposed omnipoj 
tence; but it is because thy tender heart, having always leanf 



LAN DOR. 615 

aiFectionately upon good, hath felt and known nothing of evil. 
I once persuaded thee to reflect much : let me now persuade thee 
to avoid the habitude of reflection, to lay aside books, and to 
gaze carefully and steadfastly on what is under and before thee. 

Jane. I have well bethought me of my duties : oh, how exten- 
sive they are ! what a goodly and fair inlieritance ! But tell me, 
would you command me never more to read Cicero and Epictetus 
and Plutarch and Polybius ? The others I do resign : they are 
good for the arbor and for the gravel-walk : yet leave unto me, 
I beseech you, my friend and father, leave unto me for my fire- 
side and for my j^illow, truth, eloquence, courage, constancy. 

Ascham. Read them on thy marriage-bed, on thy child-bed, on 
thy death-bed. Thou spotless, undrooping lily, they have fenced 
thee right well. These are the men for men : these are to fashion 
the bright and blessed creatures whom God one day shall smile 
upon in thy chaste bosom. Mind thou thy husband. 

Jane. I sincerely love the youth who hath espoused me ; I love 
him vfiih the fondest, the most solicitous aflection ; I pray to the 
Almighty for his goodness and hapj)iness, and do forget, at times 
— unworthy supplicant ! — the prayers I should have offered for 
myself. Never fear that I will disparage my kind religious 
teacher, by disobedience to my husband in the most trying 
duties. 

Ascham. Gentle is he, — gentle and virtuous ; but time will 
harden him : time must harden even thee, sweet Jane ! Do 
thou, complacently and indirectly, lead him from ambition. 

Jane. He is contented with me and with home. 

Ascham. Ah, Jane! Jane! men of high estate grow tired of 
contentedness. 

Jane. He told me he never liked books unless I read them to 
him : I will read them to him every evening ; I w^ill open new 
worlds to him richer than those discovered by the Spaniard ; I 
will conduct him to treasures — oh, what treasures ! — on which he 
may sleep in innocence and peace. 

Ascham. Rather do thou walk with him, ride wdth him, play 
with him, — be his faery, his page, his every thing that love and 
poetry have invented, — but watch him well ; sport with his fan- 
cies ; turn them about like the ringlets round his cheek ; and if 
ever he meditate on power, go toss up thy baby to his brow, and 
bring back his thoughts into his heart by the music of thy dis- 
course. Teach him to live unto God and unto thee ; and he will 
discover that women, like the plants in woods, derive their soft- 
ness and tenderness from the shade. 



616 LAND OR. 



QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CECIL. 



Elizabeth. I advise thee again, churlish Cecil, how that our 
Edmund Spenser, whom thou callest, most un courteously, a 
whining whelp, hath good and solid reason for his complaint. 
God's blood ! ^ shall the lady that tieth my garter and shuffles the 
smock over my head, or the lord that steadieth my chair's back 
while I eat, or the other that looketh to my buck-hounds lest they 
be mangy, be holden by me in higher esteem and estate than he 
who hath placed me among the bravest of past times, and will 
as safely and surely set me down among the loveliest in the future? 

Cecil. Your highness must remember he carouseth fully for 
such deserts : fifty pounds a year of unclipt moneys, and a butt 
of canary wine; not to mention three thousand acres in Ireland, 
worth fairly another fifty and another butt, in seasonable and 
quiet years. 

Elizabeth. The moneys are not enow to sustain a pair of grooms 
and a pair of palfreys, and more wine hath been drunken in my 
j^resence at a feast. The moneys are given to such men, that 
they may not incline nor be obligated to any vile or lowly occu- 
pation ; and the canary, that they may entertain such promising 
Wits as court their company and converse; and that in such 
manner there may be alway in our land a succession of these 
heirs unto Fame. 

A page of poesy is a little matter: be it so. But of a truth I 
do tell thee, Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the 
vSpaniard cannot trouble ; it shall win to it full many a proud and 
flighty one that even chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. 
I may shake titles and dignities by the dozen from my breakfast- 
board ; but I may not save those upon whose heads I shake them 
from rottenness and oblivion. This 3^ear they and their sovran 
dwell together, next year they and their beagle. Both have 
names, but names perishable. The keeper of my privy-seal is an 
earl: what then! the keeper of my poultry-yard is a Caesar. In 
honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin 
given to him : what is not natively his own falls off" and comes 
to nothing. 

I desire in future to hear no contempt of penmen, unless a 
depraved use of the pen shall have so cramped them as to inca- 
pacitate them for the sword and for the council-chamber. If j 
Alexander was the great, what was Aristoteles, who made him J 
so, and taught him every art and science he knew except three, ,^' 
— those of drinking, of blaspheming, and of murdering his ^: 
bosom friends ? Come along: I will bring thee back again nearer 1 1 
home. Thou mightest toss and tumble in thy bed many nights, '' \ 

1 I have retained this profime expression, as it is so characteristic of the "maiden queen." 



LAN DOR. 617 

and never eke out tlie substance of a stanza: but Edmund, if 
perchance I should call upon him for his counsel, would give me 
as wholesome and prudent as any of you. We should indemnify 
such men for the injustice we do unto them in not calling them 
about us, and for the mortification they must suffer at seeing 
their inferiors set before them. Edmund is grave and gentle; he 
complains of Fortune, not of Elizabeth, — of courts, not of Cecil. 
I am resolved, so help me God, he shall have no further cause 
for his repining. Go, convey unto him those twelve silver spoons, 
with the apostles on them, gloriously gilded ; and deliver into his 
hand these twelve large golden pieces, sufficing for the yearly 
maintenance of another horse and groom. Beside which, set 
open before him with due reverence this Bible, wherein he may 
read the mercies of God toward those who waited in patience for 
His blessing; and this pair of crimson silk hose, which thou 
knowest I have worn only thirteen months, taking heed that the 
heel-piece be put into good and sufficient restoration, at my sole 
charges, by the Italian woman nigh the pollard elm at Chariug- 
cross. 

PROFESSION versus PRACTICE. 

An honest man may fairly scoff* at all philosophies and reli- 
gions which are proud, ambitious, intemperate, and contradictory. 
It is the business of the philosophical to seek truth : it is the 
office of the religious to worship her. The falsehood that the 
tongue commits is slight in comparison with what is conceived 
by the heart, and executed by the whole man, throughout life. 
If, professing loTe and charity to the human race at large, I 
quarrel day after day with my next neighbor ; if, professing that 
the rich can never see God, I spend in the luxuries of my house- 
hold a talent monthly ; if, professing to place so much confidence 
in His word that, in regard to w^orldly weal, I need take no care 
for to-morrow, I accumulate stores even beyond what would be 
necessary, though I quite distrusted both His providence and His 
veracity; if, professing that "he who giveth to the poor lendeth 
to the Lord," I question the Lord's security, and haggle with 
Him about the amount of the loan ; if, professing that I am their 
steward, I keep ninety-nine parts in the hundred as the emolument 
of my stewardship; how, when God hates liars and punishes 
defrauders, shall I, and other such thieves and hypocrites, fare 
hereafter ? 

ENDING OF PARADISE LOST. 

Learned and sensible men are of opinion that the Paradise 
Lost should have ended with the words " Providence their guide." 
It might very well have ended there ; but Ave are unwilling to 
lose sight, all at once, of our first parents. Only one more 

52* 



618 LAND OB. 

glimpse is allowed us : we are thankful for it. We have seen the 
natural tears they dropped ; we have seen that they wiped them 
soon. And why Avas it ? Not because the world was all before 
them, but because there still remained for them, under the 
guidance of Providence, not indeed the delights of Paradise, now 
lost forever, but the genial clime and calm repose of Eden. 

FRIENDSHIP. 

In the hour of distress and misery, the eye of every mortal 
turns to friendship; in the hour of gladness and conviviality, 
what is our want? it is friendship. When the heart overflows 
with gratitude, or with any other sweet and sacred sentiment, 
what is the word to which it would give utterance ? my friend. 

GAMBLING. 

Gambling is the origin of more extensive misery than all other 
crimes put together; and the mischief falls principally on the 
unoffending and helpless. It leads, by insensible degrees, a 
greater number of wretches to the gallows than the higher atroci- 
ties from which that terminus is seen more plainly. And yet 
statesmen make it the means of revenue, and kings bestow on it 
the title of royal under the name of lottery. The royal lottery- 
keeper is both a gambler and a swindler ; for, in his playing, he 
knows that the stake he lays down is unequal to his opponent's. 

W I SB 031. 

Wisdom consisteth not in knowing many things, nor even in 
knowing them thoroughly; but in choosing and in following what 
conduces the most certainly to our lasting happiness and true 
glory. 

SCULPTURE, PAINTING, POETRY. 

Painting, by degrees, will perceive her advantages over Sculp- 
ture; but, if there are paces between Sculpture and Painting, 
there are parasangs between Painting and Poetry. The difference 
is that of a lake confined by mountains, and a river running on 
through all the varieties of scenery, perpetual and unimpeded. 
Sculpture and Painting are moments of life ; Poetry is life itself, 
and every thing around it and above it. 

GOODNESS. 

Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than hap- 
piness makes them good. We must distinguish between felicit] 
and prosperity ; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ai 



WISEMAN. 619 

bition to disappointment: the course is then over; the wheel 
turns round but once; while the reaction of goodness and happi- 
ness is perpetual. 

FOUNDERS OF FAMILIES. 
Young gentlemen! let not the highest of you who hear me this 
evening be led into the delusion — for such it is — that the founder 
of his family was originallij a greater or a better man than the 
lowest here. He willed it, and became it. He must have stood 
low; he must have worked hard, — and with tools, moreover, of 
his own invention and fashioning. He waved and whistled off 
ten thousand strong and importunate temptations ; he dashed the 
dice-box from the jewelled hand of Chance, the cup from Plea- 
sure's, and trod under foot the sorceries of each; he ascended 
steadily the precipices of Danger, and looked down with in- 
trepidity from the summit ; he overawed Arrogance with Sedate- 
ness; he seized by the horn and overleaped low Violence; and 
he fairly swung Fortune round. 



NICHOLAS WISEMAN 1802-1865. 

Nicholas Wiseman, Cardinal, was born at Seville, in Spain, August 2, 1802, 
of Irish parents who had settled there. He was educated in the English 
college at Rome, received the degree of D.D. in 1824, and was promoted to the 
priesthood in 1825. He became Professor of Oriental Literature, and in De- 
cember, 1828, rector of the English college. In 1835 he was in London, and 
delivered a course of lectures "On the Principal Doctrines and Practices of the 
Catholic Faith." In 1840 he was appointed Coadjutor Bishop to Dr. Walsh ; 
"the Vicar Apostolic of the Central District of England;" and President of 
St. Mary's College, at Oscott. In 1850 he was made "Vicar Apostolic of the 
London District," and in the following year was made by the Pope "Arch- 
bishop of Westminster," and raised to the dignity of Cardinal. From that 
time to his death, February 15, 1865, he labored most assiduously in the dis- 
charge of his duties, delivering numerous lectures and sermons on various 
subjects, many of which were published. His talents were of a very high 
order, and he was acknowledged as one of the first scholars in Europe. Be- 
sides being skilled in the Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Oriental tongues, he was 
well acquainted with most of the European languages. He was one of the 
chief founders of the Dublin Bevieto; and his Essays in that periodical were 
highly creditable to him. His chief work is, Tioelve Lectures on the Connexion 
between Science and Revealed Religion, published in 1836, in two volumes, which 
gave him a high reputation; and few books of the size contain more varied 
and interesting information. 

DIFFERENT LANGUAGES AS FIT FOR DIFFERENT DESIGNS. 
We are not, I think, to imagine that Divine Providence, in 
distributing to different human families this holy gift of speech, 



620 



WISEMAN. 



had no farther purpose than the material dispersion of the human 
race, or the bestowing on them varied forms of utterance : there 
was doubtless therein a deeper and more important end, — the 
sharing out among them of the intellectual powers. For lan- 
guage is so manifestly the embodying power, the incarnation, so 
to speak, of thought, that we can almost as easily imagine to 
ourselves a soul without a body, as our thoughts unclothed by 
the forms of their outward expression. And hence these organs 
of the spirit's conceptions must, in their turn, mould, control, 
and modify its peculiar character, so that the mind of a nation 
must necessarily correspond to the language it possesses. 

The Semitic family, destitute of particles and grammatical 
forms suited to express the relations of things, stiffened by an 
unyielding construction, and confined by the dependence of words 
upon verbal roots to ideas of outward action, could not lead the 
mind to abstract or abstruse ideas ; and hence its dialects have 
been ever adapted for the simplest historical narratives, and for 
the most exquisite poetry, where mere impressions or sensations 
are felt and described in the most rapid succession ; while not a 
school of native philosophy has arisen within their pale, not an 
element of metaphysical thought occurs in their sublimest com- 
positions. Hence are the deepest revelations of religion, the 
awfullest denunciations of prophecy, the wisest lessons of virtue, 
clothed, in Hebrew, under imagery drawn from outward nature. 
And in this respect the author of the Koran necessarily followed 
the same course. 

But to the Indo-European was given a wonderful suppleness in 
expressing the inward and outward relations of things, by flexion 
in its nouns, by conditional and indefinite tenses in its verbs, by 
the tendency to make or adapt innumerable particles, but prin- 
cipally by the powerful and almost unlimited faculty of com- 
pounding words ; joined whereunto is the facility of varying, in- 
verting, and involving the construction, and the power of imme- 
diately and completely transferring the force of words, from a 
material to a purely mental representation. Hence, while it is a 
fit instrument for effecting the loftiest designs of genius, it is no 
less powerful in the hands of the philosopher ; and in it, and by 
it, have arisen those varied systems which, in ancient India, and 
in later Greece, and in modern Germany, have attem2:)ted to 
fathom the human understanding and analyze to their primitive 
elements the forms of our ideas. ^ f 



i"As an illustration of these remarks, I 
may say that, in our times, the transcendental 
philosophy could hardly have risen in any 
country except Germany, whose language pos- 
sesses the characteristics of the family more 
than any other, and could most easily permit 
or suggest the using of the first pronoun ob- 



jectively, — a %iolerice too great, in otlier En* i| 
rojiean languages, for tliem to have first de- 
vised it. In Latin, for instance, where ther« 
is no article, it is almost impossible to express 
it; nor could one using that language have 
conceived such an idea." — Wiseman. 



TAYLOR. 



621 



And do you not see in all tins a subserviency to still nobler 
designs, when in conjunction with these reflections you look back 
at the order observed by God in the manifestation of his religion? 
For so long as his revelations were rather to be preserved than 
propagated, while his truths regarded principally the history of 
man and his simplest duties towards God, when his law consisted 
of precepts rather of outward observance than of inward con- 
straint, wdiile the direction of men was managed rather by the 
mysterious agency of seers into futurity than by the steady rule 
of unalterable law, the entire system of religion was deposited 
in the hands of that human family Avhose intellectual character 
and language were admirably framed for clinging with tenacity 
to simple traditions of early days, and for describing all that 
was on the outside of man, and lent themselves most effectually 
to the awful ministry of the prophet's mission. 

But no sooner is a mighty change introduced into the ground- 
work of his revelation, and the faculties unto which it is addressed, 
than a corresponding transfer manifestly takes place in the family 
whereunto its ministration and principal direction are obviously 
committed. The religion now intended for the whole world, and 
for each individual of the human race, requiring in consequence 
a more varied evidence to meet the wants and satisfy the long- 
ings of every tribe, and every country, and every age, is handed 
over "to other husbandmen," whose deeper power of thought, 
whose ever eager impulse to investigate, would more easily dis- 
cover and bring to light its inexhaustible beauties ; who would 
search out its connexions with every other order of truth, every 
other system of God's dispensation : thus ever bringing forth new 
motives of conviction and new themes of jDraise. And in this 
manner Divine Wisdom, while it hath made the substance of 
religion one and immutable, hath yet in a manner tied its evi- 
dences to the restless wheel of man's endeavor, and mingled them 
with the other motives of his impelling desires, that so every 
Step made in the prosecution of sound study and humble inquiry 
may give them also a new advance and a varied position, on 
which the reflecting mind may dwell with surpassing admiration . 



ISAAC TAYLOR, 1787-1865. 

Isaac Taylor, Jr., the son of the Rev. Isaac Taylor, an Independent minister 
of Ongar,! Essex, was born at that place in 1787. He received his education at 



1 Several members of the family are well 
known in literature. Charles, brother of 
Isaac senior, was the learned editor of Cal- 
inet'a Bible Dictionary; Ann (Isaac's wife), 



author of Maternal Solicitude, — a book much 
read at the time; the two sisters of Isaac ju- 
nior, Ann (afterwards Mrs. Gilbert) and J.ane, 
were the authors of Orir/inal Poems for Infant 



622 



TAYLOR. 



home, under the direction of his father. His literary tastes and religious prin- 
ciples began to be developed when he was quite a youth; and he early became 
a contributor to the Eclectic Revieio^ In 1822 appeared his first work, — Ele- 
ments of Thought; and in 1860 his last, — The Spirit of Hebrew Foetry : between 
these he published about twenty-five volumes, the chief of which are — Natural 
History of Enthusiasm, Saturday Evening, Fanaticism, Spiritual Despotism, Phy- 
sical Theory of another Life, Ancient Christianity and the Doctrines of the Tracts 
for the Times,^ Loyola and Jesuitism, and Wesley and Methodism. He died on 
the 28th of June, 1865. 

Isaac Taylor has been well called " the greatest English lay theologian since 
Coleridge." All his writings evince great research, profound thought, and a 
pure Christian and catholic spirit. By birth and education a " Dissenter," he 
connected himself, in the latter part of his life, with the "Established" 
Church. But he was no sectarian. He loved truth wherever found, and pur- 
sued it with a zeal that knew no abatement, and with a learning that has 
rarely been excelled. He devoted himself to spiritual studies simply from 
his pure love for them; and so much sought for were his works from the 
very beginning, that he was enabled to make religious literature his pro- 
fession. He cannot be called a "popular" writer, in the broad sense of that 
term; but his works, from their comprehensive and catholic spirit, their pro- 
found research, and their logical power, have always been the choice com- 
panions of the thoughtful and the inquiring.^ 

DANGERS OF THE RELIGION OF THE IMAGINATION. 

The religion of the heart, it is manifest, may be sujoplanted by 
a religion of the imagination, just in the same way that the social 
affections are often dislodged or corrupted by factitious sensibili- 
ties. Every one knows that an artificial excitement of the kind 
and tender emotions of our nature may take place through the 
medium of the imagination. Hence the power of poetry and the 
drama. But every one must also know that these feelings, how 
vivid soever and seemingly pure and salutary they may be, and 
however nearly they may resemble the genuine workings of the 
soul, are so flir from producing the same softening effect upon the 
character, that they tend rather to indurate the heart. When- 
ever excitements of any kind are regarded distinctly as a source 
of luxurious pleasure, then, instead of expanding the bosom with 
beneficent energy, instead of dispelling the sinister purposes of 
selfishness, instead of shedding the softness and warmth of gene- 
rous love through the moral system, they become a freezing 
centre of solitary and unsocial indulgence, and at length displace 
every emotion that deserves to be called virtuous. No cloak of 
selfishness is, in fact, more impenetrable than that which usually 



Hindu, and Hymns for Infant Minds. Jano 
herself wrote Display, a Tale for Young 
FeMple, 1815. 

1 The organ of the Independents or Congre- 
gationalists. 



2 " His Ancient Christianity, by its erudition 
and argumentative power, completely demo- 
lished the position taken by the Tractarians." 

3 Read an article on his Literary Life, in 
Macmillan' s Magazine for January, 1866. 



TAYLOR. 623 

envelops a pampered imagination. The reality of woe is the 
very circumstance that paralyzes sympathy ; and the eye that 
can pour forth its flood of commiseration for the sorrows of the 
romance or the drama, grudges a tear to the substantial wretched- 
ness of the unhappy. Much more often than not, this kind of 
luxurious sensitiveness to fiction is conjoined with a callousness 
that enables the subject of it to pass through the affecting occa- 
sions of domestic life in immovable apathy : the heart has be- 
come, like that of leviathan, " firm as a stone, yea, hard as a 
piece of the nether millstone." This process of perversion and 
of induration may as readily have place among the religious emo- 
tions as among those of any other class ; for the laws of human 
nature are uniform, wdiatever may be the immediate cause which 
puts them in action ; and a fictitious piety corrupts or petrifies 
the heart not less certainly than does a romantic sentimentality. 
The danger attending enthusiasm in religion is not, then, of a 
trivial sort; and whoever disaffects the substantial matters of 
Christianity, and seeks to derive from it merely, or chiefly, the 
gratifications of excited feeling, — w^hoever combines from its ma- 
terials a paradise of abstract contemplation or of poetic imagery, 
where he may take refuge from the annoyances and the impor- 
tunate claims of common life, — whoever thus delights himself 
with dreams and is insensible to realities, lives in peril of aw^aking 
from his illusions when truth comes too late. The religious 
idealist sincerely believes himself, perhaps, to be eminently de- 
vout; and those who witness his abstraction, his elevation, his 
enjoyments, may reverence his piety ; meanwhile, this fictitious 
happiness creeps as a lethargy through the moral system, and is 
rendering him continually less and less susceptible of those emo- 
tions in which true relis-iou consists. 



JOHN WESLEY. 

Wesley took his position upon the field of the world, — the 
friend of man, the enemy of nothing but sin. On this ground he 
lias a claim to be regarded with reverent aflection and admira- 
tion, which is as valid as that of any of the worthies to whom 
a place has been assigned among the benefactors of mankind. 
The very inconsistencies that mark his progress (when properly 
considered) do but enhance his demand upon our sympathies. 
If, indeed, as heartless writers have affirmed, he had been nothing 
better than an ambitious plotter, — the builder of a house in which 
he should rule and be worshipped, — no such inconsistencies, would 
ever have come to the surface, or would for a moment have made 
him halt on his path. Unquestionably, it was from the want 
of a plot at the beginning, and from the lack of ambition as he 
went on, that he found himself compelled to yield, once and 



624 TAYLOR. 

again, to the instances of some who seem to have been deficient 
in neither. 

As a field preacher, the courage, the self-possession, the tem- 
per, and the tact (and the same praise is due to his brother) 
which he displayed, place Wesley in a j^osition inferior to none 
with whom it would be reasonable to compare him. After set- 
ting off from the account his constitutional intrepidity, his moral 
courage was that which is characteristic of a perfect benevolence, 
and which in the height of danger thinks only of the rescue of 
its objects. When encountering the ruftianism of mobs and of 
magistrates, he showed a firmness, as well as a guileless skill, 
which, if the martyr's praise might admit of such an adjunct, 
was graced with the dignity and courtesy of the gentleman. 

THE FOUNDERS OF 3IETH0DISM. 

It would not be easy, or not possible, to name any company of 
Christian preachers, from the apostolic age downward to our own 
times, whose proclamation of the gospel has been in a larger pro- 
portion of instances effective, or which has been carried over 
so large a surface with so much power or with so uniform a re- 
sult. No such harvest of souls is recorded to have been gathered 
by any body of contemporary men since the first century. An 
attempt to compute the converts to Methodistic Christianity would 
be a fruitless as Avell as presumptuous undertaking, from which 
w^e draw back ; but we must not call in question, what is so 
variously and fully attested, that an unimpeachable Christian 
profession was the fruit of the Methodistic preaching in instances 
that must be computed by hundreds of thousands, throughout 
Great Britain and in America. 

Until the contrary can be clearly proved, it may be affirmed \ 
that no company of men of whose labors and doctrine we have 
any sufficient notice, has gone forth with a creed more distinctly 
orthodox, or more exempt from admixture of the doctrinal fecu- ; 
lence of an earlier time. None have stood forward more free | 
than these were from petty solicitudes concerning matters of ob- 
servance, to which, whether they were to be upheld or to be 
denounced, an exaggerated importance was attributed. None 
have confined themselves more closely to those principal subjects 
which bear directly upon the relationship of man to God, — as i 
immortal, accountable, guilty, and redeemed. If we are tempted | 
to complain of the unvaried complexion of the Methodistic | 
teaching, it is the uniformity which results from a close ad-f, 
herence to the very rudiments of the gospel. Uniformity or 
sameness of aspect, as it may be the coloring of dulness and of 
death, so may it spring from simplicity and power ; but can it be 






KEBLE. 



625 



a question to which of these sources we should attribute that 
undiversified breadth which is the characteristic of Methodism ? 

To dispute the claims of the Methodistic company to be thus 
regarded, on the ground of any errors of an incidental kind that 
may have attended their teaching, or of the follies or delin- 
quencies that may be chargeable upon any of them, individually, 
would be a frivolous as well as an ungenerous mode of proceed- 
ing. Need it be said that these Methodists were men " of like 
passions with ourselves" ? and such, too, were those who, in the 
apostolic age, carried the gospel throughout the Roman world, 
and beyond it. Taken in the mass, the one company of men was 
as wise as the other, — not wiser ; as holy, — not more holy. If it 
be affirmed that the Christian worthies of some remote time 
were, as a class of men, of a loftier stature in virtue and piety 
than these with whom we have now to do, let the evidence on 
which such an assumption could be made to rest be brought for- 
ward : this can never be done ; and the supposition itself should 
be rejected as a puerile superstition. 



JOHN KEBLE, 1789-1866. 

Rev. John Keble was born in the year 1789, and was educated at Corpus 
Christi College, Oxford, where he took his degree with high honor in 1810. In 
1813 he was appointed to the vicarage of Hursley, near Winchester, which he 
held to the close of his life. From 1831 to 1842 he filled the Professorship of 
Poetry in the University of Oxford. He died on the 29th of March, 1866. Such 
are the bare outlines of his quiet, beautiful, uneventful life. 

As an author Mr. Keble is known for his theological writings, chiefly Sermons, 
but more especially for his Sacred Lyric Foetry, which is certainly among the 
most beautiful of this century. In 1827 appeared his Christian Tear, of which 
the Christian public of England has shown its high estimation by demanding 
more than eighty editions up to 1865 ,• and it has also passed through many 
editions in this country. His other poetical works are Child's Christian Year, 
Lyrce Innocentium, and The Psalms of David in English Verse; while many of the 
late compilations of sacred poetry are enriched by productions from his pen.* 



' In the Lyra Apostolica his poems are dis- 
tinguished by the Greek letter y. To the 
Tracts for the Times he contributed Noa. 4, 13, 
40, 52, and 89. He also wrote the able article 



on Sacred Poetry in the thirty-second Tolume 
of the Quarterly Review. In 2%e Guardian of 
April 4. 1866, appeared the following beautiful 
sonnet : — 



IN MEMO RI AM J. K. 

One star of song from out our firmament 
Hath pass'd away ; and, lo ! a vacant space 
Where once rich music flow'd from lips of grace 
And soothed the murmurs of our discontent : — 
Silent the voice that once its sweetness sent 
Through all the windrngs of the Chridian year, 

53 



626 KEBLE. 

3I0RNING. 

" His compassions fail not. They are new every morning." — Lament, iii. 22, 23. 

Hues of the rich unfolding morn, 
That, ere the glorious sun be born, 
By some soft touch invisible 
Around his path are taught to swell ; — • 

Why waste your treasures of delight 
Upon our thankless, joyless sight, 
Who, day by day, to sin awake, 
Seldom of heaven and you paitake ? 

Oh ! timely happy, timely wise, 
Hearts that with rising morn arise ! 
Eyes that the beam celestial view, 
Which evermore makes all things new !^ 

New every morning is the love 
Our wakening and uprising prove ; 
Through sleep and darkness safely brought, 
Restored to life, and power, and thought. 

New mercies, each returning day. 

Hover around us while we pray : 

New perils past, new sins forgiven. 

New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven. 

If on our daily course our mind 
Be set, to hallow all we find. 
New treasures still, of countless price, 
God will i)rovide for sacrifice. 

We need not bid, for cloister'd cell. 
Our neighbor and our work farewell, 
Nor strive to wind ourselves too high 
For sinful man beneath the sky : 

The trivial round, the common task. 
Would furnish all we ought to ask ; 
Room to deny ourselves ; a road 
To bring us, daily, nearer God. 

Only, O Lord, in thy dear love 
Fit us for perfect rest above ; 
And help us, this and every day, 
" "'To live more nearly as' we pray.- — 



Or sang to lyre attuned for listening ear 
Of childlike souls whose name is Innocent. 
Hush, faithless grief! This Easter morning bright 

Its witness bears, — nor star nor voice is gone: 
That still shines clear for all who love the light: 

This through far lands and ages soundeth on ; 
Ah ! were it ours to tune our lives aright. 

Nor basely fail where he hath nobly won I 
Exeter, 1866. 

1 Rev. xxi. 5. . 



KEBLE. 627 

EVENING. 

' Ab'-^e with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." — Luke xxiv. 29. 

Sim of my soul ! tliou Saviour dear, 
It is not night if Thou be near ; 
Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise 
To hide The& from thy servant's eyes ! 

When the soft dews of kindly sleep 
My wearied eyelids gently steep, 
Be my last thought, how sweet to rest 
Forever on my Saviour's breast. 

Abide with me from morn till eve, 
For without Thee I cannot live : 
Abide with me when night is nigh, 
For without Thee I dare not die. 

Thou Framer of the light and dark, 
Steer through the tempest thine own ark : 
Amid the howling wintry sea 
We are in port if we have Thee. 

If some poor wandering child of thine 
Have spurn'd to-day the voice divine, 
Now, Lord, the gracious work begin ; 
Let him no more lie down in sin. 

Watch by the sick : enrich the poor 
With blessings from thy boundless store : 
Be every mourners sleep to-night 
Like infants' slumbers, pure and light. 

Come near and bless us when we wake. 
Ere through the world our way we take ; 
Till in the ocean of thy love 
We lose ourselves in heaven above. 



THE DOVE ON THE CROSS. 

" Nevertheless, T tell you the truth ; it is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not 
away, the Comforter will not come unto you : but, if I depart, I will send him unto you." — 
John xvi. 7. 

My Saviour, can it ever be 
That I should gain by losing Thee? 
The watchful mother tarries nigh. 
Though sleep have closed her infant's eye ; 
For should he wake, and find her gone, 
She knows she could not bear his moan. 
But I am weaker than a child. 

And Thou art more than mother dear : 
Without Thee heaven were but a wild : 

How can I live without Thee here ? 

"'Tis good for yovi that I should go. 
You lingering yet a while below ;" — 
'Tis thine own gracious promise, Lord ! 
Thy saints have proved the faithful word, 



628 KEBLE. 



When heaven's bright boundless avenue 

Far open'd on their eager view, 

And homeward to thy Father's throne, 

Still lessening, brightening on their sight, 
Thy shadowy car went soaring on ; 

They traek'd Thee up the abyss of light, 
^t * * * -» * 

The days of hope and praver are past, 
The day of comfort dawns^at last, 
The everlasting gates again 
Roll back, and, lo ! a royal train — 
From the far depth of light once more 
The floods of glory earthward pour ; 
They part like shower-drops in mid air. 

But ne'er so soft fell noontide shower, 
Nor evening rainbow gleam'd so fair 

To weary swains in parched bower. 

Swiftly and straight each tongue of flame 

Through cloud and breeze unwavering came, 

And darted to its place of rest 

On some meek brow, of Jesus blest. 

Nor fades it yet, that living gleam. 

And still those lambent lightnings stream ; 

Where'er the Lord is, there are they ; 

In every heart that gives them room, 
They light his altar every day, 

Zeal to inflame, and vice consume, 

Then, fainting soul, arise and sing ; 
Mount, but be sober on the wing ; 
Mount up, for heaven is won by prayer, 
Be sober, for thou art not there ; 
Till death the weary spirit free. 
Thy God hath said, 'Tis good for thee 
To walk by faith and not by sight : 

Take it on trust a little while ; 
Soon shalt thou read the mystery right 

In the full sunshine of His smile. 

Or if thou yet more knowledge crave. 
Ask thine own heart, that willing slave 
To all that works thee wo or harm : 
Shouldst thou not need some mighty charm 
To win thee to thy Saviour's side, 
Though He had deign'd with thee to bide ? 
The Spirit must stir the darkling deep, 

The Dove must settle on the cross. 
Else we should all sin on or sleep 

With Christ in sight, turning our gain to loss. 



THE FLOWERS OF THE FIELD. 

Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies. 
Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew. 

What more than magic in you lies. 
To fill the heart's fond view ! 



KEBLE. 629 



In childhood's sports, companions gay, 
In sorrow, on life's downward way, 
How soothing ! in our last decay 
Memorials prompt and true. 

Relics ye are of Eden's bowers, 
As pure, as fragrant, and as fair 

As when ye crown' d the sunshine hours 
Of happy Avanderers there. 

Fallen all beside — the world of life, 

How is it stain'd with fear and strife ! 

In reason's world what storms are rife, 
What passions rage and glare ! 

Ye fearless in your nests abide — 

Nor may we scorn, too proudly wise, 

Your silent lessons, undescried 
By all but lowly eyes : 

For ye could draw the admiring gaze* 

Of Him who worlds and hearts surveys ; 

Your order wild, your fragrant maze, 
He taught us how to prize. 

Alas ! of thousand bosoms kind 
That daily court you and caress, 

How few the happy secret find 
Of your calm loveliness ! 

" Live for to-day ; to-morrow's light 

To-morrow's cares shall bring to sight ; 

Go sleep like closing flowers at night, 
And heaven thy morn will bless." 

BROTHERLY LOVE. 

No distance breaks the tie of blood ; 

Brothers are brothers evermore ; 
Nor wrong, nor wrath of deadliest mood, 

That magic may o'erpower. 
Oft, ere the common source be known, 
The kindred drops will claim their own. 
And throbbing pulses silently 
Move heart toward heart by sympathy. 

So is it with true Christian hearts ; 

Their mutual share in Jesus' blood 
An everlasting bond imparts, 

Of holiest brotherhood. 
Oh, might we all our lineage prove, — 
Give and forgive, — do good and love ; 
By soft endearments in kind strife 
Lightening the load of human life. 



Admiring gaze, rfc. — See Matt. vi. 28-30. 



53* 



630 BROUGHAM. 



HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM, 1778- 



The history of this distinguished statesman, orator, scholar, and philanthro- 
pist is so identified with the history of his country for the last fifty years, that 
it would be impossible to write his life without making the groundwork of it a 
history of the age in which he lived. "The public measures with which he is 
most closely identified are the advocacy of the manufacturing and commercial 
interests, as opposed to orders in council and other restrictions on trade; hos- 
tility to the continental combinations of the successors of Pitt, and their legiti- 
mate offspring, the exhausting wars of the Holy Alliance; the vindication of 
Queen Caroline in the struggle with her libertine husband; the freedom of the 
press, attempted to be overawed by prosecutions for libels on the government 
and the church; the education of the middle and lower orders; religious tole- 
ration for dissenters and Catholics; reform in the civil and criminal law; Par- 
liamentary reform; municipal reform; poor-laws reform; the abolition of the 
slave-trade and slavery ; retrenchment in government expenditures ; the inde- 
pendence of the Canadian Legislature, and the repeal of the corn laws. "What 
a catalogue have we here! Upon all these measures, each of which was an era 
in British history, Brougham has acted a leading and, upon many, a control- 
ling part. His speeches upon most of them surpassed those of any other of 
their advocates, whether we consider the extent of the information displayed, 
the depth and energy of the reasoning, the scope and vigor of the style, the 
eloquence of the appeals to justice and kumanity, or the majesty and splendor 
of the highest passages." ^ 

Henry Brougham is the eldest son of Henry Brougham.Esq., of Brougham Hall, 
in Westmoreland, and was born in Edinburgh in 1778. He received the rudiments 
of his education at the high school in Edinburgh, then under the superintendence 
of Dr. Adam, and in 1795 entered the universitj'-, where he distinguished him- 
self by the aptness and energy of mind he displayed in grasping any subject 
wtich he made the object of his studies. In 1802 he became one of the pro- 
jectors and chief contributors of the Edinburgh Review, in conjunction with 
Mr. Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and others; and in 1803 published An Inquiry into 
the Colonial Policy of the European Powers, which at once drew the eyes of the 
public upon its author. After being called to the Scotch bar, he made a tour 
to the north of Europe, and on his return commenced practice in the Court of 
King's Bench, London. Here his reputation rose rapidly, and gained for him 
both popularity and emolument. 

He first entered Parliament in 1810, and here he found the appropriate field for 
his great abilities. In 1815 he introduced his own bill for the better education of 
the poor, and in 1818 succeeded in carrying it through a committee of the whole 
house, having supported it in a speech of great brilliancy and power. In 1820, 
on the commencement of the proceedings against Queen Caroline in the House 
of Lords, Mr. Brougham appeared as her attorney-general at the head of her 
I«gal defenders. His bearing on this occasion was such as almost to awe the 
accusers of his royal client: while his skilful cross-examination of the witnesses 
against her, and his masterly speech in her behalf, had such an effect that 

1 Read the sixteenth chapter in Stanton's I npon the life, services, and character of Lord 
Keforms and Reformers of Great Britain, j Brougham. 



BROUGHAM. 



631 



Lord Liverpool thought it advisable to abandon the prosecution. In June, 
1824, he brought before Parliament the circumstances relative to the horrible 
treatment of the missionary Smith in Demerara, and continued to denounce 
slavery and the slave-trade, and to advocate the cause of emancipation, on 
every opportunity. 

In the early part of 1825 Mr. Brougham was elected Lord Rector of the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow, in opposition to Sir Walter Scott, and, at the installation, 
delivered a finished and eloquent oration, which he had written during the 
bustle and fatigue of the Northern Circuit. The year 1827 is memorable for 
the establishment of the " Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge/' of 
which Mr. Brougham was president. He was its most active promoter, and 
composed for it the admirable Treatise on the Objects, Pleasures, and Advantages 
of Science, — its first publication. In this year, also, the London University was 
founded, and the name of Brougham will ever be associated with it as one of 
its originators. In 1829 he supported the Catholic Relief Bill, introduced by 
the "Wellington administration ; and at the general election of 1830 he was, in 
the most flattering manner, chosen for Yorkshire, where he had no influence . 
whatever beyond that of his great public celebrity. 

The accession of Lord Grey's administration in ISTovember, 1830, was the 
signal for Mr. Brougham's appointment to the Lord Chancellorship, and his 
elevation to the peerage, by the title of Baron Brougham and Vaux, of Broug- 
ham in Westmoreland. He continued to discharge the duties of Lord Chan- 
cellor until the dissolution of the Melbourne cabinet in 1834, when he went 
out with the other ministers ; and since that time he has industriously exerted 
his great abilities, both in and out of Parlianient, in favor of such measures 
as are calculated to advance the best interests of society. 

As an orator, Lord Brougham has had few equals in or out of the senate, 
and no statesman of his time, except, perhaps, Sir William E. Gladstone, pos- 
sessed the same versatility. His power of ready, rapid, and forcible diction 



was rem ark a1 



But he has won a high reputation in other fields besides 



oratory. He has cultivated mathematical and physical science with success, 
and has ventured upon the domain of metaphysics and even of theology. His 
miscellaneous writings are of great extent and upon an almost incredible 
variety of subjects, though many of them are of an ephemeral character rather 
than permanent additions to literature.^ 

Lord Brougham still continues (1866) to take a warm interest in legal and 
social reform. When not engaged in Parliament, he resides, for the benefit of 
his health, chiefly at Cannes, in the south of France.^ 



1 "His speeches unquestionably stand in 
the very first rank of oratorical masterpieces. 
They contain individual passages of eloquence, 
rhetoric, debate, logic, equal to any thing; 
besides condensed qualities of information 
brought powerfully to bear upon particular 
subjects, and a mass of masculine sense, 
variegated by sharp flings of sarcasm, and 
illustrated by a display of wit, and seasoned 
by tart peculiarities of temper and language, 
M-hich render them, in th«ir collected form, 
one of the richest legacies which the genius 
of oratory ever bequeathed to the unborn 
time." — Gilfillan's Literary Portraits. 

2 His works, as collected by himself, in ten 



volumes octavo, 1857, contain the following : — 
Vol. I. Lives of Me.n of Science in the Time of 
George the Third; II. Lives of Men of Letters; 
III., IV., V. Eminent Statesmen ; VI. Natural 
Theology; VII. Rhetorical and Literary Ad- 
dresses ; VIII. Rhetorical and Political Disser- 
tations ; IX., X. Speeches on Social and Political 
Subjects. To these may be added Contributions 
to the Edinburgh Review, three volumes, Glas- 
gow, 1856. 

3 It is deeply to be regretted that the bril- 
liant reputation which Lord Brougham won in 
middle life, as the champion of Freedom and 
of human rights as opposed to the giant crime 
of slavery, should be overclouded in his de- 



632 



BROUGHAM. 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON— THE SCHOOLMASTER. 

Let it not be supposed that I am inclined to exaggerate. 1 
entertain no fear of slavery being introduced by the power of 
the sword. It would require a stronger — it would demand a 
more powerful man even than the Duke of Wellington to eifect 
such an object. The noble duke may take the army, he may 
take the navy, he may take the mitre, he may take the great 
seal. I will make the noble duke a present of them all. Let 
him come on Avith his whole force, sword in hand, against the 
Constitution, and the energies of the people of this country will 
defeat his utmost efforts. Therefore I am perfectly convinced 
that there will be no unconstitutional attack on the liberties of 
the people. These are not the times for such an attempt. There 
have been periods when the country heard with dismay that 
"The soldier was abroad." That is not the case now. Let the 
soldier be abroad ; in the present age he can do nothing. There 
is another person abroad, — a less important person in the eyes 
of some, — an insignificant person, whose labors have tended to 
produce this state of things. The schoolmaster is abroad ! And 
I trust more to him, armed with his primer, than I do to the 
soldier in full military array, for upholding and extending the 
liberties of his country. 

''MAN OVER MEN HE 31 ABE NOT X (9i2Z>."— Milton. 

I trust that at length the time is come when Parliament will 
no longer bear to be told that slave-owners are the best lawgivers 
on slavery ; no longer allow an appeal from the British public to 
such communities as those in which the Smiths and the Grims- 
dalls are persecuted to death for teaching the gospel to the 
negroes, and the Mosses holden in affectionate respect for tor- 
ture and murder ; no longer suffer our voice to roll across the 
Atlantic in empty warnings and fruitless orders. Tell me not 
of rights, — talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. 
I deny the right, — I acknowledge not the property. The prin- 



cliniiig years. In our great struggle with the 
slaveholders' rebellion in the years '62, '63, 
and '64, Lord Brougham evidently sympathized 
■with the rebels, and gave them the weight of 
his iniluence. At a large anti-slavery meeting 
held in London, May 22, 1863, he excused him- 
self from fulfilling his engagement to be pre- 
sent and take the cliair, on the plea that he 
should " appear to be departing from that 
strict neutrality which every Englishman 
ought to maintain with regard' to the events 
that are taking place in America." Says the 
London Morning Star of the next Monday, 
" Why did he not think of that sooner, when, 



as President of the Social Science Association, 
he made a savage attack upon the Federal 
Government and people ? * * * Now that he 
is asked to speak upon the noblest and most 
familiar of his wonted themes, — the crime nf 
holding property in human beings, — he [Hi'- 
fcrs silence to 'the violation of neutralii\.' 
Poor Lord Brougham! That the tongue that 
once thundered against the despots and slave- 
traffickers of all lands, denouncing as a 'wild 
and guilty fantasy' the audacious chimera that 
man can hold property in man, should now be 
sheathed in silence !" 



BROUGHAM. 033 

ciples, tlie feelings, of our common nature rise in rebellion against 
it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, 
the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of 
laws that sanction such a crime ! There is a law above all the 
enactments of human codes, — the same throughout the world, — 
the same in all times, — such as it was before the daring genius 
of Columbus pierced the night of ages and opened to one world 
the sources of power, wealth, and knowledge; to another, all 
unutterable woes: such as it is at this day. It is the law written 
by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law 
unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe 
rapine, and abhor blood, they will reject with indignation the 
wild and guilty fantasy that man can hold property in man ! 
In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations: the 
Covenants of the Almighty, whether the Old Covenant or the 
New, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they 
of old refer who maintained the African trade. Such treaties 
did they cite, and not untruly ; for by one shameful compact you 
bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet, 
despite of law and of treaty, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, 
and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this 
change to pass ? Not, assuredly, by Parliament leading the way ; 
but the country at length awoke ; the indignation of the people 
was kindled ; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and 
scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the 
planters beware ; let their assemblies beware ; let the government 
at home beware ; let the Parliament beware ! The same country 
is once more awake, — awake to the condition of negro slavery ; 
the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people ; 
the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave-trade; 
and, if it shall descend again, they on whom its crash may fall 
will not be destroyed before I have warned them. But I pray 
that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible 
judgments of God. — From his Speech in Juhj, 1830. 

HAPPY EFFECTS OF EDUCATION. 

The tendency of knowledge is, and the tendency of its diflTusion 
undoubtedly is, to improve the habits of the people, to better 
their principles, and to amend all that which w^e call their charac- 
ters ; for there are a host of principles and feelings which go 
together to make up Avhat we call, in the common acceptation of 
the words, the human character. How does this diffusion ope- 
rate ? To increase habits of reflection, to enlarge the sphere of 
the mind, to render it more capable of receiving pleasurable 
emotions and of taking an interest in other and in higher and 
better matters than mere sensual gratification. It tends to im- 



634 BROUGHAM. 

prove the feelings, as well as to increase the reflective habits; 
and it tends, therefore, to the attainment of that which in itself 
tends immediately and directly to improve the character and 
conduct of a nation. 

It tends to increase prudence and prudential habits, and to 
amend and improve the human feelings. The ancients have 
described the effects of education in far better language, and I 
much more happily, than I can do : — " emollit mores nee sinit esse 
feros." 

APTITUDE OF YOUTH FOE KNOWLEDGE. 

It is not the less true, because it has been oftentimes said, that 
the period of youth is by far the best fitted for the improvement 
of the mind, and the retirements of a college almost exclusively 
adapted to much study. At your enviable age, every thing has 
the lively interest of novelty and freshness ; attention is per- 
petually sharpened by curiosity ; and the memory is tenacious of 
the deep impressions it thus receives, to a degree unknown in 
after-life ; while the distracting cares of the world, or its beguiling 
pleasures, cross not the threshold of these calm retreats ; its dis- 
tant noise and bustle are faintly heard, making the shelter you 
enjoy more grateful ; and the struggles of anxious mortals, 
embarked upon that troublous sea, are viewed from an eminence 
the security of which is rendered more sweet by the prospect of 
the scene below. Yet a little while, and you too will be plunged 
into those waters of bitterness, 'and will cast an eye of regret, as 
now I do, upon the peaceful regions you have quitted forever. 
Such is your lot as members of society ; but it will be your own 
fault if you look back on this place with repentance or with 
shame ; and be well assured that Avhatever time — ay, every hour 
— you squander here on unprofitable idling will then rise up 
against you, and be paid for by years of bitter but unavail- 
ing regrets. Study, then, I beseech you, so to store your minds 
with the exquisite learning of former ages, that you may always 
possess within yourselves sources of rational and refined enjoy- 
ment, which will enable you to set at naught the grosser pleasures 
of sense, whereof other men are slaves ; and so imbue yourselves 
with the sound philosophy of later days, forming yourselves to 
the virtuous habits which are its legitimate offspring, that you 
may walk unhurt through the trials which await you, and may 
look down upon the ignorance and error that surround you, not ; 
with lofty and supercilious contempt, as the sages of old times, i 
but with the vehement desire of enlightening those who wander | 
in darkness, and who are by so much the more endeared to us by '\ 
how much they want our assistance. - 

Address to the Glasgow Students. 



BROUGHAM. 635 

THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE CONQUEROR. 

But there is nothing which these adversaries of improvement 
are more wont to make themselves merry with than what is 
termed the "marc/i of intellect;'^ and here I will confess that I 
think, as far as the phrase goes, they are in the right. It is a 
very absurd, because a very incorrect, expression. It is little 
calculated to describe the operation in question. It does not pic- 
ture an image at all resembling the proceedings of the true friends 
of mankind. It much more resembles the progress of the enemy 
to all improvement. The conqueror moves in a march. He 
stalks onward with the " pride, pomp, and circumstance of war," 
— banners flying, shouts rending the air, guns thundering, and 
martial music pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded, and 
the lamentations for the slain. Not thus the schoolmaster, in his 
peaceful vocation. He meditates and prepares in secret the plans 
which are to bless mankind ; he slowly gathers round him those 
who are to further their execution ; he quietly, though firmly, 
advances in his humble path, laboring steadily, but calmly, till 
he has opened to the light all the recesses of ignorance, ancl torn 
up by the roots the weeds of vice. His is a progress not to be 
compared with any thing like a march ; but it leads to a far 
more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable, than 
the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won. 

Such men — men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of 
Mankind — I have found, laboring conscientiously, though per- 
haps obscurely, in their blessed vocatio% wherever I have gone. 
I have found them, and shared their fellowship, among the daring, 
the ambitious, the ardent, the indomitably active French ; I have 
found them among the persevering, resolute, industrious Swiss ; I 
have found them among the laborious, the warm-hearted, the 
enthusiastic Germans ; I have found them among the high-minded, 
but enslaved, Italians ; and in our own country, God be thanked, 
their numbers everywhere abound, and are every day increasing. 
Their calling is high and holy ; their fame is the property of 
nations ; their renown will fill the earth in after-ages, in pro- 
portion as it sounds not far off" in their own times. Each one of 
those great teachers of the world, possessing his soul in peace, 
performs his appointed course, — awaits in patience the fulfilment 
of the promises, and, resting from his labors, bequeaths his 
memory to the generation whom his works have blessed, and 
sleeps under the humble but not inglorious epitaph, commemo- 
rating " one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man got rid 
of an enemy." 



636 



PROCTER. 



BRYAN WALLER PROCTER, 1790- 



Bryan Waller Procter (better known by the assumed name of "Barry 
Cornwall") was born in 1790, — educated at Harrow, — studied law, — admitted 
to the bar in 1831, — and for many years was one of the " Commissioners of 
Lunacy," but resigned in 1860. His Dramatic Scenes, and other Poems, was 
published in 1819 ; and was followed by Mirandola, a tragedy ; Marcian 
Colonna; The Flood of Thessaly, and other Poems; A Sicilian Story, <fec. But 
that by which he is now best known, and will be by posterity, is his English 
Songs, and other Poems; for he may fairly be considered one of the best (some 
say the best) of our modern English song-writers. His tragedies and larger 
poems add but little to his fame.i 



A PAUPERS FUNERAL. 

It is a chilling thing to see — as I 

Have seen — a man go down into the grave 

Without a tear, or even an alter'd eye: 

Oh, sadder far than when fond women rave, 

Or children weep, or aged parents sigh, 

O'er one whom art and love doth strive to save 

In vain : man's heart is soothed by every tone 

Of pity, saying, "He's not quite alone." 

I saw a pauper once, when I was young, 

Borne to his shallow grave : the bearers trod 

Smiling to where the death-bell heavily rung ; 
And soon his bones were laid beneath the sod : 

On the rough boards the earth was gayly flung ; 
Methought the%>rayer which gave him to his God 

Was coldly said ; — then all, passing away, 

Left the scarce-coffin' d wretch to quick decay. 

It was an autumn evening, and the rain 

Had ceased a while, but the loud winds did shriek, 
And call'd the deluging tempest back again ; 

The flag-staff" on the churchyard tower did creak. 
And through the black clouds ran a lightning vein. 

And then the flapping raven came to seek 
Its home : its flight was heavy, and its wing 
Seem'd weary with a long day's wandering. 



1 " If it be the peculiar province of poetry to 
give delight," says Lord Jeffrey, "this author 
should rank very high among our poets ; and, 
in spite of his neglect of the terrible passions, 
be does rank very high in our estimation. He 
has a beautiful fancy and a beautiful diction, 
and a fine ear for the music of verse, and great 
tenderness and delicacy of feeling. He seems, 
moreover, to be altogether free from any tinc- 
ture of bitterness, rancor, or jealousy, and 
never shocks us with atrocity, or stiffens us 
with horror, or confounds tis with the dread- 
ful sublimities of demoniacal energy. His 
soul, on the contrary, seems filled to overflow- 
ing with images of love and beauty, and gentle 



Borrows, and tender pity, and mild and holy 
resignation. The character of his poetry is to 
soothe and melt and delight; to make us kind 
and thoughtful and imaginative; to purge 
away the dregs of our earthly passions by the 
refining fires of a pure Imagination; and to 
lap us up from the eating cares of lite, in 
visions so soft and bright as to sink like morn- 
ing dreams on our senses, and at the same 
time so distinct, and truly fashioned upon the I 
eternal patterns of nature, as to hold their ! 
place before our eyes long after they have 
again been opened on the dimmer scenes of 1' 
the world."— Edinburgh Review, xxxir. 449. > 
Read, also, same, xxxiii. 144. 



PROCTER. 637 



A PETITION TO TIME. 



Touch us gently, Time ! 

Let us glide adown thy stream 
Gently, — as Ave sometimes glide 

Through a quiet dream ! 
Humble voyagers are We, 
Husband, wife, and children three, — 
(One is lost, — an angel, fled 
To the azure overhead !) 



Touch us gentJy, Time ! 

We've not proud nor soaring wings; 
Our ambition, our content, 

Lies in simple things. 
Humble voyagers are We, 
O'er life's dim unsounded sea, 
Seeking only some calm clime : 
Touch us gmtly, gentle Time I 



A PRATER IN SICKNESS. 

Send dow^n thy winged an'gel, God ! 

Amid this night so wild ; 
And bid him come where now we watch, 

And breathe upon our child ! 

She lies upon her pillow, pale, 

And moans within her sleep. 
Or wakeneth with a patient smile, 

And striveth not to weep. 

How gentle and how good a child 

She is, we know too well, 
And dearer to her parents' hearts 

Than our weak words can tell. 

We love, — we watch throughout the night. 

To aid, when need may be ; 
We hope, — and have despair' d, at times; 

But now we turn to Thee ! 

Send down thy sweet-soul' d angel, God ! 

Amid the darkness wild. 
And bid him soothe our souls to-night, 

And heal our gentle child !^ 



THE SEA. 

The sea ! the sea ! the open sea ! 

The blue, the fresh, the ever free ! 

Without a mark, without a bound. 

It runneth the earth's wide regions round ; 

It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies, 

Or like a cradled creature lies. 

I'm on the sea ! — I'm on the sea! 

I am where I would ever be. 

With the blue above, and the blue below, 

And silence wheresoe'er I go : 

If a storm should come, and awake the deep, 

What matter ? I shall ride and sleep. 



1 And his daughter Adelaide Anne luas healed, and became one of the sweetest sacred lyric 
poets of the nineteenth century. 

54 



638 PROCTER. 



I love, oil, liow I love to ride 
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, 
When every mad wave drowns the moon, 
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune, 
And tells how goeth the world below, 
And why the sou'west blasts do bloAV. 

I never was on the dull tame shore. 
But I loved the great sea more and more, 
And backward flew to her billowy breast, 
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest ; 
And a mother she Avas and is to me, 
For I was born on the open sea ! 

The Avaves wenp AA-hite, and red the morn, 
In the noisy hour Avhen I was born ! 
And the Avliale it Avhistled, the porpoise roll'd, 
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold ; 
And never AA^as heard such an outcry Avild 
As Avelcomed to life the ocean child ! 

I've lived since then, in calm and strife, 
Full fifty summers a sailor's life. 
With Avealth to spend and a poA\^er to range. 
But never have sought nor sigh'd for change ; 
And Death, whenever he comes to me, 
Shall come on the Avild unbounded sea ! 



THE STORMY PETREL. 

A thousand miles from land are we, 

Tossing about on the roaring sea ; 

From billow to bounding billow cast, 

Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast : 

The sails are scatter'd abroad like weeds. 

The strong masts shake like quivering reeds, 

The mighty cables, and iron chains. 

The hull, AA'hich all earthly strength disdains. 

They strain and they crack, and hearts like stone 

Their natural hard, proud strength disown. 

Up and down ! Up and down ! 
From the base of the Avave to the billow's crown, 
And amid the flashing and feathery foam 
The stormy Petrel finds a home, — 
A home, if such a place may be 
For her Avho lives on the wide wide sea, 
On the craggy ice, in the frozen air. 
And only seeketh her rocky lair 
To warm her young, and to teach them spring 
At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing ! 

O'er the deep ! O'er the deep ! 
WTiere the whale and the shark and the sAvord-fish sleep, 
Outflying the blast and the driving rain. 
The JPetrel telleth her tale — in vain ; 
For the mariner curseth the warning bird 
Who bringeth him news of the storms unheard ! 



MILMAN. 639 

Ah ! thus does the prophet, of good or ill, 
Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still ! 
Yet he ue'er falters : — So, Petrel ! spring 
Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing ! 



THE SEXES. 

As the man beholds the woman, 

As the woman sees the man, 
Curiously they note each other. 

As each other only can. 

ISTever can the man divest her 
Of that wondrous charm of sex ; 

Ever must she, dreaming of him, 
The same mystic charm annex. 

Strange, inborn, profound attraction ! 

Not the poet's range of soul, 
Learning, science, sexless virtue. 

Can the gazer's thought control. 

But through every nerve and fancy 
Which the inmost heart reveals, 

Twined, ingrain'd, the sense of difference. 
Like the subtle serpent, steals. 



HENRY HART MILMAN, 1791 

One of the most copious writers of our day is the Eev. Henry Hart Mil- 
man, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's. He is the youngest son of Sir Francis Milman, 
physician to George III. He entered Brazennose College, Oxford, in 1810, and 
won the prize for Latin verse in the next year. Two years after he was elected 
Fellow of his college, and the next year produced the best English essay, A 
Comparative Estimate of Sculpture and Painting, a Prize Essay, and appeared as 
an author in the tragedy of Fazio. In 1817 he was appointed Vicar of St. 
Mary's, Reading, and in 1821 was chosen Professor of Poetry in Oxford. In 
1835 he was appointed Rector of St. Margaret's, and Canon of St. Peter at 
Westminster; and in 1849 he received from Oxford the degree of D.D., on his 
appointment to the Deanery of St. Paul's, — an office which he has administered 
with great ability and general approbation. Such are the outlines of the quiet 
and uneventful life of this distinguished and elegant scholar. 

As an author, Dean Milman has been very prolific. Besides Fazio, mentioned 
above, in 1818 appeared Samor, Lord of the Bright City, an heroic poem ; in 
1820, The Fall of Jerusalem, a dramatic poem ,• in 1822, The Martyr of Antioch, 
a drama; and Belshazzar, a dramatic poem; in 1826, Anne Boleyn, a dramatic 
poem ; in 1829, The History of the Je^os, in three volumes ; in 1840, History of 
Christianity to the Abolition of Paganism, three volumes; and in 1845 (second 
edition, 1857), History of Latin Christianity, six volumes: the two last are 
works of great research and learning. Besides these works, he has published a 
Life of Gibbon; an edition of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; 



640 MILMAN. 

an edition of Horace, with a Life of the Foet, and Ci'itical Remarlis ; numeroua 
Sermons; Character and Condnct of the Apostles considered as Evidences of Chris- 
tianity. He has also been a liberal contributor to the Quarterly Review, and has 
written some beautiful sacred lyrics. • 

It will thus be seen what an industrious writer the Dean has been ; and he 
is no less a valuable one. As his varied learning is conspicuous in his histori- 
cal works, so his fine taste and chaste imagination are seen in his dramatic 
poems; while most of his lyrical pieces are remarkable for beauty, tenderness, 
and pathos. 

JERUSALEM BEFORE THE SIEGEA 

Titm. It must be — 

And yet it moves me, Eomans ! It confounds 

The counsel of my firm philosopliy, 

That Ruin's merciless ploughshare must pass o'er, 

And barren salt be sown on yon proud city. 

As on our olive-crowned hill we stand, 

Where Kedron at our feet its scanty waters 

Distils from stone to stone with gentle motion. 

As through a valley sacred to sweet peace, 

How boldly doth it front us! how majestically! 

Like a luxurious vineyard, the hill-side 

Is hung with marble fabrics, line o'er line. 

Terrace o'er terrace, nearer still, and nearer 

To the blue heavens. There bright and sumptuous palaces, 

With cool and verdant gardens interspersed ; 

There towers of war, that frown in massy strength ; 

While over all hangs the ricli purple eve, 

As conscious of its being her last farewell 

Of light and glory to tliat fated city. 

And, as our clouds of battle, dust, and smoke 

Are melted into air, behold the temple 

In undisturb'd and lone serenity, 

Finding itself a solemn sanctuary 

In the profound of heaven ! It stands before us 

A mount of snow, fretted with golden pinnacles! 

The very sun, as though he worshipp'd there, 

Lingers upon the gilded cedar roofs. 

And down the long and branching porticos, 

On every flowery-sculptured capital, 

Glitters the homage of his parting beams. 

By Hercules ! the sight might almost win 

The offended majesty of Eome to mercy. 

Frovi the Fall of Jerusalem. 

THE FIRMNESS OF FAITH. 

[Margarita's reveiation to her father (Callias, Priest of Apollo) of her conversion to 

Christianity.] 

Callias. How ? What ! mine ears 

Ring with a wild confusion of strange sounds 
That have no meaning. Thou'rt not wont to mock 

1 This fine view of Jerusalem is almost altogether taken from that given by Josephus,— the 
description of the temple especially. 



MILMAN. 641 

Thine aged father, but I think that now 
Thou dost, my child. 

Margarita. By Jesus Christ — by Him 

In whom my soul hath hope of immortality, 
Father ! I mock not. 

Call. Lightnings blast — not thee, 

But those that, by their subtle incantations, 
Have wrought upon thy innocent soul. 

Look there ! — 

Marg. Father, I'll follow thee where'er thou wilt : 
Thou dost not mean this cruel violence 
With wliich thou dragg'st me on. 

Chll- Dost not behold him, 

Thy God! thy father's God! the God of AntiochI 
And feel'st thou not the cold and silent awe 
That emanates from his immortal presence 
O'er all the breathless temple ? Dar'st thou see 
The terrible brightness of the wrath that burns 
On his arch'd brow ? Lo, how the indignation 
Swells in each strong dilated limb ! his stature 
Grows loftier ; and the roof, the quaking pavement, 
The shadowy pillars, all the temple feels. 
The offended God ! I dare not look again. 
Dar'st thou ? 

Marg. I see a silent shape of stone. 

In which the majesty of human passion 
Is to the life express'd. A noble image, 
But wrought by mortal hands, upon a model 
As mortal as themselves. 

Call.^ Ha ! look again, then. 

There in the East. Mark how the jjurple clouds 
Throng to pavilion him : the officious winds 
Pant forth to purify his azure path 
From night's dun vapors and fast-scattering mists. 
The glad earth wakes in adoration ; all 
The voices of all animate things lift up 
Tumultuous orisons ; the spacious world 
Lives but in him, that is its life. But he. 
Disdainful of the universal homage, 
Holds his calm way, and vindicates for his own 
The illimitable heavens, in solitude 
Of peerless glory unapproachable. 
What means thy proud undazzled look, — to adore. 
Or mock, ungracious ? 

Marg. On yon burning orb 

I gaze, and say, — Thou mightiest work of Him 
That launch'd thee forth, a golden-crowned bridegroom. 
To hang thy everlasting nuptial lamp 
In the exulting heavens. In thee the light, 
Creation's eldest-born, was tabernacled. 
To thee was given to quicken slumbering nature. 
And lead the seasons' slow vicissitude 
Over the fertile breast of mother earth ; 
Till men began to stoop their grovelling prayers. 
From the Almighty Sire of all, to thee. 
And I will add, — Thou universal emblem, 
54* 



642 MILMAN. 

Hung in the forehead of the all-seen heavens, 
Of Him, that, with the light of righteousness, 
Dawn'd on our latter days ; the visitant day-spring 
Of the benighted world. Enduring splendor ! 
Giant refresh'd ! that ever more renew'st 
Thy flaming strength ; nor ever shalt thou cease, 
With time coeval, even till Time itself 
Hath perish'd in eternity. Then thou 
Shalt own, from thy apparent deity 
Debased, thy mortal nature, from the sky 
Withering before the all-enlightening Lamb, 
Whose radiant throne shall quench all other fires. 

Call. And yet she stands unblasted ! In thy mercy 
Thou dost remember all my faithful vows, 
Hyperion ! and suspend the fiery shaft 
That quivers on thy string. Ah, not on her 
This innocent, wreak thy fury ! I will search. 
And thou wilt lend me light, although they shroud 
In deepest Oi'cus. I will pluck them forth, 
And set them up a mark for all thy wrath ; 
Those that beguiled to this unholy madness 
My pure an(J blameless child. Shine forth, shine forth, 
Apollo, and we'll have our full revenge ! 

Marg. 'Tis over now — and, oh, I bless thee. Lord, 
For making me thus desolate below ; 
For severing one by one the ties that bind me 
To this cold world ; — for whither can earth's outcasts 
Fly but to heaven ? 

Yet is no way but this, 
None but to steep my ftither's lingering days 
In bitterness? Thou knowest, gracious Lord 
Of mercy, how he loves me, how he loved me 
From the first moment that my eyes were open'd 
Upon the light of day and him. At least. 
If thou must smite him, smite him in thy mercy. 
He loves me as the life-blood of his heart ; 
His love surpasses every love but thine. 

From the Martyr of Antioch. 



A HEBREW WEDDING. 

riEST JEW. 

Hark ! what's there ? Fresh horror ! 
[Singing and music at a distance.'] 

SONG TO THE BRIDEGROOM. 

[A company of youths, with torches and music, are leading the bridegroom to the 
abode of his bride.} 



To the sound of timbrels sweet, 
Moving slow our solemn feet. 
We have borne thee on the road. 
To the virgin's blest abode ; 



MILMAN. 643 



With thy yellow torches gleaming, 
And thy scarlet mantle streaming, 
And the canopy above 
•Swaying as we slowly move. 

Thou hast left the joyous feast, 
And the mirth and wine have ceast: 
And now we set thee down before 
The jealously-unclosing door ; 
That the favor'd youth admits 
Where the veiled virgin sits 
In the bliss of maiden fear, 
Waiting our soft tread to hear. 
And the music's brisker din, 
At the bridegroom's entering in. 
Entering in, a welcome guest, 
To the chamber of his rest. 



SECOND JEW. 

It is the bridal song of Amariah 

And fair Salone. In the house of Simon 

The rites are held, nor bears the bridegroom home 

His plighted spouse, but there doth deck his chamber ; 

These perilous times dispensing with the rigor 

Of ancient usage. 



CHORUS OF MAIDENS. 

Now the jocund song is thine. 

Bride of David's kingly line ! 

How thy dove-like bosom trembleth, 

And thy shrouded eye resembleth 

Violets, when the dews of eve 

A moist and tremulous glitter leave 

On the bashful sealed lid ! 

Close within the bride- veil hid. 

Motionless thou sitt'st and mute ; 

Save that at the soft salute 

Of each entering maiden friend 

Thou dost rise and softly bend. 

Hark ! a brisker, merrier glee ! 
The door unfolds, — 'tis he, 'tis he. 
Thus we lift our lamps to meet him. 
Thus we touch our lutes to greet him. 
Thou shalt give a fonder meeting, 
Thou shalt give a tenderer greeting. 

Fall of Jerusalem. 

THE BURIAL ANTHEM. 

Brother, thou art gone before us, 

And thy saintly soul is flown 
Where tears are wiped from every eye. 

And sorrow is unknown. 



644 ALISON. 



From the burden of tlie flesh, 
And from care and fear released, 

"Where the wicked cease from troubling, 
And the weary are at rest. , 

The toilsome way thou'st travell'd o'er, 

And borne the heavy load. 
But Christ hath taught thy languid feet 

To reach His blest abode ; 
Thou'rt sleeping now, like Lazarus 

Upon his fatlier's breast, 
"Where the wicked cease from troubling, 

And the weary are at rest. 

Sin can never taint thee now, 

Nor doubt thy faith assail, 
Nor thy meek trust in Jesus Christ 

And the Holy Spirit fail : 
And there thou'rt sure to meet the good, 

Whom on earth thou lovedst best. 
Where the wicked cease from troubling, 

And the weary are at rest. 

" Earth to earth," and " dust to dust," 

The solemn priest hath said : 
So we lay the turf above thee now, 

And we seal thy narrow bed ; 
But thy spirit, brother, soars away 

Among the faithful blest, 
Wliere the wicked cease from troubling, 

And the weary are at rest. 

And when the Lord shall summon us, 

Whom thou hast left behind, 
May we, untainted by the world. 

As sure a welcome find ; 
May each, like thee, depart in peace, 

To be a glorious guest, 
Where the wicked cease from troubling, 

And the weary are at rest. 



ARCHIBALD ALISON, 1792-1867. 

Archibald Alison, Baronet, the eldest son of the celebrated author of the 
Essay on Taste,^ was born in Shropshire, December 29, 1792; but in 1800 his 
father removed to Edinburgh, and soon placed his son in the university, where 
he gained the highest honors in Greek and mathematics. In 1814 he was 
called to the Scotch bar; and in 1832 he published a work entitled The Practice^ 
of the Criminal Law, which has long been the leading authority on this subject. 
In 1834 he was appointed, by Sir Robert Peel, Sheriff of Lanarkshire, — an ofSce 
nearly corresponding to that of County Judge in England. In 1845 he was 

1 See page 271. 



ALISON. 645 

elected Lord Rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen ; and in 1851, Lord Rector 
of the University of Glasgow. In 1852 he was created a baronet; and in 1853, 
a D.C.L. of Oxford. He died May 23, 1867, after a brief illness. 

The great work of Sir Archibald Alison is The History of Europe from the 
Covimencement of the French Revolution to the Bestoraimi of the Bourbons, pub- 
lished in ten volumes between 1839 and 1842. A continuation, under the 
title of The History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon to the Accession of Louis 
Napoleon, in nine volumes, was finished in 1860. It is not at all surprising 
that in a work of such vast magnitude, extending through years of such mo- 
mentous and far-reaching events, many mistakes should have been detected. 
But, in spite of its imperfections, it remains a wonderful monument of the his- 
torian's energy, perseverance, and literary skill, and as a vast storehouse of 
facts and details relating to the most important and memorable period in 
modern history. It has gone through numerous editions, and has been trans- 
lated into the German, French, Arabic, and other languages. 



NAPOLEON AND WELLINGTON. 

Napoleon and Wellington were not merely individual charac- 
ters : they were the types of the powers which they respectively 
headed in the contest. Napoleon had brighter genius, Welling- 
ton superior judgment : the former combated with greater energy, 
the latter with more perseverance. Rapid in design, instant in 
execution, the strokes of the French hero fell like the burning 
thunderbolt ; cautious in council, yet firm in action, the resources 
of the British champion multiplied, like the vigor of vegetation, 
after the withering stroke had fallen. No campaign of Welling- 
ton's equals in energy and activity those of Napoleon in Italy 
and in France ; none of Napoleon's approaches in foresight and 
wisdom that of Wellington at Torres Vedras. The vehemence 
of the French Emperor would have exhausted, in a single season, 
the whole resources which, during the war, were at the disposal 
of the English general ; the caution of Wellington would have 
alienated in the very beginning the troops which overflowed 
with the passions of the Revolution. Ardor and onset were alike 
imposed on the former by his situation and suggested by his dis- 
position ; foresight and perseverance were equally dictated to the 
latter by his necessities and in unison with his character. The 
one wielded at pleasure the military resources of the half of 
Europe, and governed a nation heedless of consequences, covetous 
of glory, reckless of slaughter ; tlie other led the forces of a people 
distrustful of its prowess, avaricious of its blood, niggardly in the 
outset in its expenditure, but, when once roused, invincible in its 
determination. And the result, both in the general war and final 
struggle, was in entire conformity with this distinction. Wel- 
lington retired in the outset before the fierce assault of the French 
legions ; but he saw them, for the first time since the Revolution, 
permanently recoil in defeat from the rocks of Torres Vedras : 



646 ALISON. 

lie was at first repeatedly expelled from Spain ; but at last lie 
drove the invaders" with disgrace across the Pyrenees. He was 
in the beginning assailed unawares, and wellnigh overpowered, in 
Flanders ; but in the end he baffled all Napoleon's efforts, and, 
rising up with the strength of a giant, crushed at once his army 
and his empire on the field of Waterloo. 

The personal and moral characters of the two chiefs were still 
more strikingly opposed, and emblematic of the sides they seve- 
rally led. Both were distinguished by the unwearied perse- 
verance, the steady purpose, the magnanimous soul, which are | 
essential to glorious achievements ; both w^ere provident in council 
and vigorous in execution ; both possessed personal intrepidity in 
the highest degree ; both were indefatigable in activity and iron 
in constitution ; both enjoyed the rarer qualities of moral courage 
and fearless determination. But, in other respects, their minds 
were as opposite as were the poles asunder. Napoleon was 
covetous of glory, Wellington was impressed with duty ; Napo- 
leon was reckless of slaughter, Wellington was sparing of blood ; 
Napoleon was careless of his word, Wellington was inviolable in 
faith. Treaties were regarded by the former as binding only 
when expedient, — alliances valid only when useful ; obligations 
were regarded by the latter as obligatory, though ruinous, — con- 
vention as sacred, even when disgraceful. Napoleon's wasting 
warfare converted allies into enemies; Wellington's protecting 
discipline changed enemies into friends. The former fell, because 
all Europe rose up against his oppression ; the latter triumphed, 
because his principles were such that all Europe was at last glad 
to place itself under his guidance. There is not a proclamation 
of Napoleon to his soldiers in which glory is not mentioned, nor 
one in which duty is alluded to ; there is not an order of Wel- 
lington to his troops in which duty is not inculcated, nor one in 
which glory is mentioned. * * * 

Napoleon placed himself at the head of Europe, and desolated 
it for fifteen years with his warfare ; Europe, in return for 
Waterloo, placed Wellington at the head of its armies, and he 
gave it thirty years of unbroken peace. The former thought 
only in peace of accumulating the resources' of future war ; the 
latter sought only in war the means of securing future peace, and 
finally sheathing the sword of conquest. The one exhibited the 
most shining example of splendid talents devoted to temporal 
ambition and national aggrandizement ; the other, the noblest 
instance of moral influence directed to exalted purposes and 
national preservation. The former was in the end led to ruin 
while blindly pursuing the meteor of worldly greatness ; the lat- 
ter was un ambitiously conducted to final greatness while only 
following the star of public duty. The struggle between them 
was the same at bottom as that which, anterior to the creation 



ALISON. 647 

of man, shook tlie powers of heaven ; and never was such an 
example of moral government afforded as the final result of their 
immortal contest. Wellington was a warrior ; but he was so 
only to become a pacificator : he has shed the blood of man ; but 
it was only to stop the shedding of human blood : he has borne 
aloft the sword of conquest ; but it was only to plant in its stead 
the emblems of mercy. He has conquered the love of glory — 
the last infirmity of noble minds — by the love of peace, — the first 
grace of the Christian character. 

THE RAILWAY MANIA OF 18 U, IS45, AND 18 46. 

The effect of this universal mania appeared in a thousand dif- 
ferent ways, some of which, it must be confessed, exhibited the 
national character in no very favorable colors. The passion for 
gain, now thoroughly awakened, seized upon all classes, pervaded 
both sexes, swept away all understandings. The grave and the 
gay, the old and the young, the studious and the volatile, were 
alike involved in the vortex. The few who ventured to with- 
stand the torrent, and to suggest that the currency and capital 
of the country were alike inadequate to bear the strain which 
would soon be brought upon them, were put aside as mere 
alarmists, whose opinions were entitled to no consideration. It 
was said the money never left the country, that it only circu- 
lated from hand to hand with more rapidity, and that there was 
enough and to spare. Every one concerned, however remotely, 
in the great work of forming the network of railways which was 
to overspread the country, was worked to death, so great was the 
universal anxiety to get the lines forward. Surveyors with theo- 
dolites and chains were incessantly travelling the country in 
every direction ; and when the proprietor refused his consent to 
their entry, it was stealthily obtained at night, or openly asserted 
in daylight by large bodies of men. Nothing could resist the 
universal mania. Park walls were to be perforated, shady dells 
penetrated, gardens pierced through, stately mansions levelled 
with the ground, villages ruined, streets effaced, to make way for 
those gigantic precursors of human improvement. * * * 

It may easily be conceived that so prodigious and universal 
a ferment in society did not take place without unhinging in a 
great degree the public mind, and bringing forward in the most 
dangerous way many of the worst qualities of human nature. 
The same effects on all classes which had been observed in France 
during the Mississippi bubble, reappeared in Great Britain, but 
on a much larger scale, and pervading more universally all 
gradations of society. The passion for gain, deemed by all to be 
within their reach, seized upon all classes. Not a doubt was 
entertained, save by the thinking few, who Avere derided as 



648 



ALISON. 



alarmists and croakers, of the possibility, nay certainty, of reach* 
ing the goal ; the only point was, who was to be first in the race ? 
All classes joined in it : country clergymen and curates hastened 
to invest the savings of their scanty incomes in the golden invest- 
ments ; traders and shopkeej^ers in towns almost universally ex- 
pended their all in similar undertakings ; servants, both in afflu- 
ent and humble families, were to be seen on all sides crowding to 
the agents' offices in the nearest towns, to throw their little 
savings into the crucible from whence a golden image was ex- 
pected to start forth. It was painful to behold the extent of the 
delusion, mournful to contemplate its certain consequences. No 
class, not even the very highest, was exempt from it. Ladies of 
rank and fashion hastened from their splendid West End man- 
sions into the city to besiege the doors of the fortunate specu- 
lators, whose abodes were deemed a certain entrance to fabled 
wealth ; the palaces of the exclusives were thrown open to vulgar 
manners and grotesque habits, to facilitate an entrance into these 
magician's dens. * * * 

It would be well if the historian had only to record the imme- 
diate losses which arose to the parties concerned in them from 
these gigantic undertakings. But unfortunately the evil did not 
stop here ; but, on the contrary, has impressed its mark in a last- 
ing way on the national character, and on the estimation in which 
the legislature is held. From the extravagant speculations and 
unbounded gains and losses of the years during which the mania 
lasted, may be dated a great change, and one materially for the 
worse, in the mercantile character of the country. The old Eng- 
lish merchant, cautious, upright, honorable, lavish in his charities, 
economical in his household, liberal to others, saving upon him- 
self, has disappeared. " Namque avaritia fidem, probitatem cete- 
rasque artis bonai subvertit; pro his superbiam crudelitatem, 
Deos negligere, omnia veiialia habere, edocuit. Hsec primo paulla- 
tim crescere, interdum, vindicari. Post, ubi contagio quasi pesti- 
lentia invasit civitas immutata."^ In the joint-stock companies 
which succeeded the individual direction of the old English mer- 
chant, facilities to fraud were multiplied, inducements to probity 
taken away. Forgery and embezzlement hoped for evasion in 
the careless management of the many ; honesty and integrity 
lost their appropriate reward by their fruits being shared by 
numbers. Every species of fraud — false balance-sheets, false 
dividends, cooked accounts — was perpetrated, in some cases with 
long-continued concealment and immense profits. When at 



1 " For avarice subverted honesty, integrity, 
and all other honorable principles: in their 
stead it inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt 
of religion, and general venality. These vices 
at first advanced but slowly, and were some- 



times punished. Afterwards, when their infec- 
tion had spread like a pestilence, the whole 
state was entirely changed."— S.4.llust's Co7i' : 
spiracy of Catiline, JT. 



ALISON. 649 

length the perpetrators of the iniquity had in general escaped, 
aware of what was coming, they had in time disposed of their 
shares to the widow and the orphan, who, deceived by their repre- 
sentations, bore the penalty of their sins. 



THE PRESENT TUIES. 

Vigor, indeed, is not a-wanting; activity — restless insatiable 
activity, is in profusion ; talent is as yet undecayed ; but where 
are the elevated feelings, the high resolves, the enduring con- 
stancy, the religious inspiration, the moral resolution, which gave 
dignity and grandeur to the past age ? These qualities, doubtless, 
are still found in many individuals ; but we speak of the general 
tendency of things, not the character of particular men. Even 
where they do occur, are they not chiefly to be discerned in those 
of a certain standing in life ? and are they not remarked by the 
rising generation as remnants of the former age, which are fast 
disappearing and will soon be totally extinct ? * * * 

The philosopher's stone is alone sought after by the alchemists 
of modern days ; nothing is studied but what will render the 
human mind prolific of dollars. To purify the heart and human- 
ize the affections ; to improve the understanding and dignify the 
manners ; to provide not the means of elevation in life, but the 
power of bearing elevation with propriety; to confer not the 
power of subduing others, but the means of conquering one's 
self; to impress love to God and good will towards men, are 
deemed the useless and antiquated pursuits of the monks of 
former days. Practical chemistry and sulphuric acid, decrepi- 
tating salts and hydraulic engines, algebraic equations and com- 
mercial academies, mercantile navigation and double and single 
book-keeping, have fairly, in the seminaries of the middle ranks, 
driven Cicero and Virgil off" the field. * * * 

The extension and improvement of the mechanical arts ; the 
multiplication of railroads, canals, and harbors — extraordinary 
rapidity of internal communication — increasing craving for news- 
papers, and in all its forms ; the general spread of comfort, and 
universal passion for luxury, afford no antidote whatever against 
the native corruption of the human heart. We may go to Paris 
from London in three hours, and to Constantinople in twelve ; 
we may communicate with India, by the telegraph, in a forenoon, 
and make an autumnal excursion to the Pyramids or Persepolis 
in a fortnight, by steamboats, and yet, amidst our improvements, 
be the most degraded and corrupt of the human race. Internal 
communication was brought to perfection in the Koman empire, 
but did that revive the spirit of the legions, or avert the arms of 
the barbarians ? Did it restore the age of Cicero and Virgil ? 
Because all the citizens gazed daily on the most sumptuous edi- 

55 



650 



CARLYLE. 



fices, and lived amidst a forest of the noblest statues, did that 
hinder the rapid corruption of manners, the irretrievable degene- 
racy of character, the total extinction of genius? Did their 
proud and ignorant contempt of the barbarous nations save 
either the Greeks or the Komans from subjugation by a ruder 
and more savage, but a fresher and a nobler race ? Were they 
not prating about the lights of the age, and the unparalleled state 
of social refinement, Avhen the swords of Alaric and Attila were 
already drawn ? In the midst of all our excursions, have we yet 
penetrated that deepest of all mysteries, the human heart ? With 
all our improvements, have we eradicated one evil passion, or ex- 
tinguished one guilty propensity, in that dark fountain of evil ? 



THOMAS CARLYLE, 1796- 



Thomas Carlyle, the Essayist, Biographer, and Historian, was born in the 
parish of Middlebie, Scotland, in 1796. His father, an elder in the Seces- 
sion church, was a small farmer, and Thomas received the rudiments of a 
classical education at a school in Annan.^ At the age of seventeen, he went to 
the University of Edinburgh, where he was distinguished for his attainments 
in mathematics, of which he was particularly fond. After leaving the univer- 
sity, he remained a little time in Edinburgh, supporting himself by teaching, and 
by writing for the booksellers. He then went to Aberdeen, where he continued 
for some time as a schoolmaster, determining to devote himself to general lite- 
rature. About the year 1824 he contributed to Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclo- 
pcedia the articles Ifontesqiiieu, Montaigne, Nelson, Norfolk, and those on the 
two Pitts, and completed a translation of Legendre's Geovietry, to which he 
prefixed an Essay on Proportions, and also published his translation of Goethe's 
Wilhelm Meister. On the completion of this, he commenced his Life of Schiller, 
which appeared by instalments in the London Magazine. In 1827 he married 
Miss "Welsh, a lineal descendant of John Knox, and resided chiefly at Craigen- 
puttoch, a small projDerty in Dumfriesshire, belonging to his wife, where he 
continued writing for the Foreign and other reviews, and published his beautiful 
Essay on Burns.^ About 1830, he went to London, and became one of the 
chief contributors to Eraser's Magazine, in which appeared his Sartor Resartus.^ 



1 Annan is in Dumfriesshire, on the Solway 
Frith, about sixty miles south of Edinburgh. 

2 This gives us about the best specimen of 
his earlier and purer style, before it became 
BO Germanized. 

3 " The Patcher Repatched ; or, the Tailor 
Done Over," the title of an old Scottish song. 
W^hile it professes to be a history or biography 
of an imaginary German professor, Herr Teu- 
felsdrockh (Devil's Dirt), it is really a sort of 
philosophical essay, containing the various 
opinions, speculations, and trials of that 
etrange personage, — or, rather, of the author 



himself; for Carlyle is, in one respect, in prose 
what Byron is in poetry, — always veiling his 
own dear self under the character he draws. 
"The mixture of subtle speculation," says a 
recent critic, " true poetry, and grotes<iue 
humor which characterized this work had 
their effect heightened by the use of a novel 
and peculiar phraseology, to some extent th(> 
imitation of a German literary slang, but t'l :i 
greater extent still the product of Mr. C.ir- 
lyle's invention, and has been adhered to ]>y 
him in all his subsequent wi'itings." 



CARLYLE. 



^651 



In 1837 he published his French Revolution} and two years after his Chartism 
appeared, and with it his Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, in five volumes, 
collected and republished from reviews and magazines. In 1840 he delivered 
in London a course of lectures on Hero- Worship, which were published in the 
following year. Since that, he has given to the world his Past and Present, 
Life of Oliver Cromwell, Latter-Day Paviphlcts,"^ Life of John Sterling.^ For the 
last twelve years he has been residing chiefly at Chelsea, employed upon his 
History of Frederick II., of Prussia, commonly called Frederick the Great, the 
sixth volume of which appeared in 1866.'* 

From the above list of works it will readily be seen that Mr. Carlyle has 
been a very industrious man. That he is a man of genius, that his writings 
show much depth and originality of thought and have exerted no little influ- 
ence upon the thinking men of the age, all admit. He also utters his thoughts, 
however erroneous, in a fearless and unreserved manner, which has gained 
him many admirers; for men love to see earnestness of purpose and inde- 
pendence of spirit, even if they do not coincide with the views thus uttered. 
But such are his idiosyncrasies; such his style, so quaint, afTected, and un-Eng- 
lish; such his dogmatic manner, his intense egotism,^ and his adoration of the 
material rather than the spiritual; and so little sympathy does he manifest,^ 
except in his earlier writings, with all movements for reform, — all that tend to 



1 This work produced at once a great im- 
pression upon the public mind, abounding as 
it did in vividly graphic and picturesque de- 
scription and intensity of feeling. And yet 
those who wish to know all the facts of the 
French Revolution must certainly read some 
calmer work, that industriously gives the 
details of that*great event. 

- Re^d an article on his Latter-Day Pam- 
phlets in the 14th volume of the North British 
Review. "They assailed with most galling 
invective and contemptuous ridicule the lead- 
ing politicians and institutions of the country. 
"The hollowness of great men and the ser- 
vilrt}' of small are lashed with a furious, sting- 
ing whip, whose thongs, steeped in the salt of 
grim, fantastic wit, cut and smart to the very 
bone. Yet many blows are too fierce, too 
bvveeping; and many fall harmless upon sound 
and honest things." — Collier. 

3 For a good article on his Life of Sterling, 
Bee George Brimley's Essays. 

* A uniform and handsome edition of his 
works, in sixteen volumes, has recently been 
published. 

5 " We have found it impossible to read a page 
of his Frederick without perceiving how mere 
a mask Frederick is of Thomas, and how com- 
pletely what might have been veracious history 
is turned into a clothes-horse for the display of 
the author's threadbare theatrical wardrobe. 
This, indeed, is the secret of Carlyle's rhetori- 
cal successes and failures, — that he is dramatic, 
not real ; artistic, not intellectual ; performer, 
not inventor. Hence his idiotic literary style, 
in which a boundless egotism is seen draping 
itself in the austerest reverence for truth. 
"VVe call Carlyle's style idiotic in the strict 
philosophic sense of that word, as being so ex- 
clusively his own style, so studiously divorced 



from the speech common to men when they 
wish to communicate truth. The signal thing 
about it is manner, not matter; appearance, 
not substance. He uses truth not for its own 
sake, but for the sake of effect; and truth 
takes her revenge by degrading him at last 
into a mere unconscious Mr. Merryman or 
serious circus-tumbler." — Natimi, July 6, 1865. 
6 To a few other of the so-called great names 
of England, who dimmed the lustre of their 
otherwise bright fame, by the absurd and 
inconsistent position they took upon what 
they styled the "American War," may be 
added the name of Carlyle. In Macmillan's 
Magazine of August, 1863, appeared the fol- 
lowing wonderful production from " the ora- 
cle" : — 

"ILIAS AMERICANA IN NUCE.l 

"Peter, of the North (to Paul, of the South). 
— Paul, you unaccountable scoundrel, I find 
you hire your servants for life, — not by the 
month or year, as I do ! You are going straight 
to Hell, you ! % 

" Paul. — Good words, Peter ! The risk is my 
own ; I am willing to take the risk. Hire you 
your servants by the month or the day, and 
get straight to Heaven ; leave me to my own 
method. 

"Peter. — No; I won't ! I will beat your 
brains out first! (And is trying dreadfully 
ever since, hut cannot yet manage it.) — T. C." 

It is hard to say whether Mr. Carlyle showed 
in this crotchety effusion more lack of intelli- 
gence or of right feeling. " From some re- 
marks in his Life of Sterling," says the London 
Star of August 1, 1863, in commenting upon 
this nonsense, " we can easily understand that 
any effort directed tow.ards emancipation of 
slaves must appear to Mr. Carlyle profoundly 



The American Iliad in a nutshell. 



652 



CARLYLE. 



aid the cause of the weak, the poor, and the oppressed in the great struggle 
going on for their rights,^ — that, however many admirers and imitators he may 
have for the present, he cannot, we think, ultimately hold a high place as one 
of the great lights in English literature. 

MA R IE-ANTOINETTE. 

On Monday, the 14tli of October, 1793, a cause is pending in 
the Palais de Justice, in the new revolutionary court, such as 
these old stone walls never witnessed, — the trial of Marie-Antoi- 
nette. The once brightest of queens, now tarnished, defaced, 
forsaken, stands here at Fouquier-Tinville's Judgment-bar, an- 
swering for her life! The indictment was delivered her last 
night. To such changes of human fortune what words are ade- 
quate ? Silence alone is adequate. 

Marie- Antoinette, in this her utter abandonment and hour of 
extreme need, is not wanting to herself, the imperial woman. 
Her look, they say, as that hideous indictment was reading, con- 
tinued calm ; " she was sometimes observed moving her fingers, as 
when one plays on the piano." You discern, not without interest, 
across that dim revolutionary bulletin itself, how she bears her- 
self queen-like. Her answers are prompt, clear, often of laconic 
brevity; resolution, which has grown contemptuous without 
ceasing to be dignified, veils itself in calm words. " You persist 
then in denial ?" " My plan is not denial : it is the truth I have 
said, and I persist in that." Scandalous Hebert has borne his 
testimony as to many things : as to one thing, concerning Marie- 
Antoinette and her little son, — whercAvith human speech had 
better not further be soiled. She has answ^ered Hebert ; a jury- 
man begs to observe that she has not answered as to this. " I 
have not answered," she exclaims, with noble emotion, " because 
Nature refuses to answer such a charge brought against a mother. 
I appeal to all the mothers that are here." Robespierre, when 
he heard of it, broke out into something almost like swearing at the 
brutish blockheadism of this Hebert, on whose foul head his foul 
li^ has recoiled. At four o'clock on Wednesday morning, after 
two days and two nights of interrogating, jury-charging, and 
other darkening of counsel, the result comes out: sentence of 
death. " Have you any thing to say ?" The accused shook her 



ridiculous and despicable. A mighty war for 
the sake of conquest and the annexation of 
territory, such as Frederick the Great would 
have made, — that, of course, would be sublime 
and glorious. But war to set millions of ne- 
groes free is a style of undertaking which the 
true philosopher, raised above paltry prejudice 
and feeble sympathy, must look down upon 
with lofty scorn." And then to turn a man 
into a "chattel personal," as the slave law 
defines him, and to deprive him of every God- 
given right, is, in Mr. C.'s view, simply "hiring 



servants for life" ! What regard can " the 
prophet" expect any seiisible person will 
hereafter have for the opinions of one who 
can concoct such absurd stuff, write it, send it 
to the press, correct the proof, and send it 
forth to the world ? Read an admirable though 
caustic Letter to Tfwmas Carlyle in the Atlan- 
tic Mfmthly for October, 1863. 

1 "Sympathy with the weak appears to him 
simply ludicrous and despicable." — London 
Star. 



CARLYLE. 653 

head without speech. Night's candles are burning out ; and with 
her, too, Time is finishing, and it will be Eternity and Day. This 
hall of Tinville's is dark, ill-lighted, except where she stands. 
Silently she withdraws from it to die. 

Two processions, or royal progresses, three-and-twenty years 
apart, have often struck us with a strange feeling of contrast. 
The first is of a beautiful Archduchess and Dauphiness, quitting 
her mother's city at the age of fifteen ; towards hopes such as no 
other daughter of Eve then had : — " On the morrow," says Weber, 
an eye-witness, "the dauphiness left Vienna. The whole city 
crowded out ; at first with a sorrow which was silent. She ap- 
peared : you saw her sunk back into her carriage ; her face bathed 
in tears ; hiding her eyes now with her handkerchief, now with 
her hands ; several times putting out her head to see yet again 
this palace of her fathers, whither she was to return no more. 
She motioned her regret, her gratitude to the good nation, which 
was crowding here to bid her farew^ell. Then arose not only 
tears, but piercing cries, on all sides. Men and women alike 
abandoned themselves to such expression of their sorrow. It was 
an audible sound of wail in the streets and avenues of Vienna. 
The last courier that followed her disappeared, and the crowd 
melted away." 

The young imperial maiden of fifteen has now become a worn 
discrowned widow of thirty-eight ; gray before her time ; this is 
the last procession : — " Few minutes after the trial ended, the 
drums were beating to arms in all sections ; at sunrise the armed 
force was on foot, cannons getting placed at the extremities of 
the bridges, in the squares, cross-ways, all along from the Palais 
de Justice to the Place de la Revolution. By ten o'clock, nu- 
merous patrols were circulating in the streets ; thirty thousand 
foot and horse drawn up under arms. At eleven Marie-Antoi- 
nette was brought out. She had on an undress of pique blanc : 
she was led to the place of execution in the same manner as an 
ordinary criminal : bound on a cart ; accompanied by a consti- 
tutional priest in lay dress ; escorted by numerous detachments 
of infantry and cavalry. These, and the double row of troops 
all along her road, she appeared to regard with indifference. 
On her countenance there was visible neither abashment nor 
pride. To the cries of Vive la Hepublique and Down with Tyranny ^ 
which attended her all the way, she seemed to pay no heed. She 
spoke little to her confessor. The tricolor streamers on the house- 
tops occupied her attention, in the streets du Roule and Saint- 
Honore ; she also noticed the inscriptions on the house-fronts. 
On reaching the Place de la Revolution, her looks turned towards 
the Jardin National, whilom Tuileries ; her face at that monient 
gave signs of lively emotion. She mounted the scaffold with 
courage enough ; at a quarter-past twelve her head fell ; the 

65* 



654 CARLYLE. 

executioner showed it to the people, amid universal long-con- 
tinued cries of Vive la Repuhlique'' 

WORK. 

There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. 
Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there 
is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works ; in 
idleness alone is there perpetual despair. AVork, never so Mam- 
monish, mean, is in communication with Kature ; the real desire 
to get work done will itself lead one more and more to truth, to 
Nature's appointments and regulations which are truth. * * * 

Blessed is he who has found his work ; let him ask no other 
blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose ; he has found it, and 
will follow it! How, as a free flowing channel, dug and torn by 
noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence, like 
an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows ; draining off the 
sour festering water gradually from the root of the remotest grass 
blade ; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green fruitful 
meadow with its clear flowing stream. How blessed for the 
meadow itself, let the stream and its value be great or small ! 
Labor is life; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God- 
given force, the sacred celestial life-essence, breathed into him 
by Almighty God ; from his inmost heart awakens him to all 
nobleness, to all knowledge *' self-knowledge," and much else, so 
soon as work fitly begins. Knowledge ! the knowledge that will 
hold good in working, cleave thou to that; for Nature herself 
accredits that, says Yea to that. Properly thou hast no other 
knowledge but Avhat thou hast got by working ; the rest is yet 
all an hypothesis of knowledge, — a thing to be argued of in 
schools, a thing floating in the clouds in endless logic vortices, 
till we try it and fix it. " Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended 
by action alone." * * * 

Older than all preached gospels was this unpreached, inarticu- 
late, but ineradicable, forever-enduring gospel: work, and therein 
have well-being. Man, Son of Earth and of Heaven, lies there 
not, in the innermost heart of thee, a spirit of active method, a 
force for work ; and burns like a painfully smouldering fire, giving 
thee no rest till thou unfold it, till thou write it down in benefi- 
cent facts around thee ! What is immethodic, waste, thou shalt 
make methodic, regulated, arable ; obedient and productive to 
thee. Wheresoever thou findest disorder, there is tliy eternal 
enemy; attack him swiftly, subdue him; make order of him, the 
subject not of chaos, but of intelligence, divinity, and thee ! The 
thistle that grows in thy path, dig it out that a blade of useful 
grass, a drop of nourishing milk, m^y grow there instead. The 
waste cotton-shrub, gather its waste VTute down, spin it, weave 



CARLYLE. 655 

it, that, in place of idle litter, there may be folded webs, and the 
naked skin of man be covered. 

But, above all, where thou findest ignorance, stupidity, brute- 
mindedness, attack it, I say ; smite it wisely, unweariedly, and 
rest not while thou livest and it lives ; but smite, smite in the 
name of God ! The highest God, as I understand it, does audibly 
so command thee : still audibly, if thou have ears to hear. He, 
even He, with his unspoken voice, is fuller than any Sinai 
thunders, or syllabled speech of whirlwinds ; for the silence of 
deep eternities, of worlds from beyond the morning-stars, does it 
not speak to thee ? The unborn ages ; the old Graves, with their 
long mouldering dust, the very tears that wetted it, now all dry, 
— do not these speak to thee what ear hath not heard? The 
deep death-kingdoms, the stars in their never-resting courses, all 
space and all time, proclaim it to thee in continual silent ad- 
monition. Thou, too, if ever man should, shalt work while it 
is called to-day; for the night cometh, wherein no man can 
work. 

All true work is sacred ; in all true work, were it but true 
hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as 
the earth, has its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow; and 
up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which 
includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, 
all spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyrdoms, — up to that 
" agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine ! O 
brother, if this is not "worship," then, I say, the more pity for 
worship ; for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's 
sky. AVho art thou that complainest of thy life of toil ? Com- 
plain not. Look up, my wearied brother ; see thy fellow-workmen 
there, in God's eternity; surviving there, they alone surviving: 
sacred band of the immortals, celestial body-guard of the empire 
of mind. Even in the weak human memory they survive so 
long, as saints, as heroes, as gods ; they alone surviving : peopling, 
they alone, the immeasured solitudes of Time ! To thee. Heaven, 
though severe, is not unkind ; Heaven is kind — as a noble mother; 
as that Spartan mother, saying, while she gave her son his shield, 
"With it, my son, or upon it!" Thou, too, shalt return home, 
in honor to thy far-distant home, in honor ; doubt it not, — if in 
the battle thou keep thy shielcl! Thou, in the eternities and 
deepest death-kingdoms, art not an alien ; thou everywhere art a 
denizen ! Complain not ; the very Spartans did not complain. 

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF CROMWELL. 

"His highness," says Whitelocke, "was in a rich but plain 
suit, — black velvet, with cloak of the same; about his hat a 
broad band of gold." Does the reader see him? A rather 



656 CARLYLE. 

likely figure, I think. Stands some five feet ten or more ; a man 
of strong, solid stature, and dignified, now partly military car- 
riage : the expression of him, valor and devout intelligence, — 
energy and delicacy on a basis of simplicity. Fifty-four years 
old, gone April last ; brown hair and moustache are getting gray. 
A figure of sufiicient impressiveness, — not lovely to the man-mil- 
liner species, nor pretending to be so. Massive stature ; big, 
massive head, of somewhat leonine aspect ; wart above the right 
eyebrow ; nose of considerable blunt-aquiline proportions ; strict 
yet copious lips, full of all tremulous sensibilities, and also, if need 
were, of all fiercenesses and rigors ; deep, loving eyes, — call them 
grave, call them stern, — looking from under those craggy brows 
as if in life-long sorrow, and yet not thinking it sorrow, — think- 
ing it only labor and endeavor : on the whole, a right noble lion- 
face and hero-face ; and to me royal enough. 

HONEST STUBYA 

If you will believe me, you who are young, yours is the golden 
season of life. As you have heard it called, so it verily is, — the 
seed-time of life, in w^hich, if you do not sow, or if you sow tares 
instead of wheat, you cannot expect to reap well afterwards, — 
you will bitterly repent when it is too late. The habits of study 
acquired at universities are of the highest importance in after- 
life. At the season when you are young in years, the whole mind 
is, as it were, fluid, and is capable of forming itself into any shape 
that the owner of the mind pleases to let it, or order it to form 
itself into. Pursue your studies in the way your conscience calls 
honest. Keep an actual separation between what you have really 
come to know in your own minds and what is still unknown. 
Count a thing known only when it is stamped on your mind, 
so that you may survey it on all sides with intelligence. There 
is such a thing as a man endeavoring to persuade himself, and 
endeavoring to persuade others, that he knows about things, 
when he does not know more than the outside skin of them ; and 
yet he goes flourishing about with them. Avoid all that, as en- 
tirely unworthy of an honorable mind. Gradually see what kind 
of work you can do ; for it is the first of all problems for a man 
to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe. 

A man is born to expend every particle of strength that God 
has given him, in doing the work he finds he is fit for, — to stand 
up to it to the last breath of life, and to do his best. We are 
called upon to do that; and the reward we all get is that we 
have got the work done, or, at least, that we have tried to do the 



1 From an Address delivered April 2, 1866, to the students of the University of Edinburgh, 
upon his installation as Lord Rector. 



HO WITT. 657 

work. For that is a great blessing in itself; and, I should say, 
there is not very much more reward than that going in this 
world. If the man gets meat and clothes, what matters it 
whether he have ten thousand pounds or seventy pounds a year ? 
He can get meat and clothes for that ; and he will find very little 
difference, intrinsically, if he is a wise man. 

Finally, gentlemen, I have one advice to give you, which is 
practically of very great importance, — that health is a thing to 
be attended to continually, — that you are to regard that as the 
very highest of all temporal things. There is no kind of achieve- 
ment you could make in the world that is equal to perfect health. 
What to it are nuggets and millions? The French financier 
said, " Alas ! why is there no sleep to be sold ?" Sleep is not in 
the market at any quotation. It is a curious thing that the old 
word for "holy" — in the German language, heilig — also means 
"healthy." Look, then, always at the heilig, which means 
" healthy" as well as " holy." Stand up to your work, whatever 
it may be, and be not afraid of it, — not in sorrows or contra- 
diction to yield, but push on towards the goal. 



WILLIAM HO WITT, 1795 

A MORE agreeable and instructive prose-writer of this century can hardly be 
named than William Howitt. He Avas born in 1795, at Heanor, in Derbyshire, 
of an old Quaker family, and received his education in the various schools con- 
nected with that Society. In 1823 he married Mary Botham. of Uttoxeter; and 
the same year ajDpeared their joint work, The Forest Minstrel, a series of poems. 
For three or four years they were both employed in contributing to "annuals," 
— The Literary Souvenir, and The Amulet. In 1831 appeared his Book of the 
Seasons; in 1833, History of Priestcraft in all Ages; in 1837, Rural Life in Eng- 
land, and Visits to Remarkable Places. In 1840 he removed with his family to 
Germany, and settled in Heidelberg for two years, where he wrote Student Life 
in Germany. On his return home he published that very interesting and in- 
structive book. Homes and Haunt's of the British Poets, and also The Aristocracy 
of England. In 184:6 he purchased a share in the People's Journal, which proA-ed 
very unfortunate and involved him in much trouble and pecuniary loss.i 
Extricating himself from this connection, he started, in 1847, Howitt's Journal, 
which was well received and encouraged, mingling, as it did, tasteful literary 
es^ys with radical political disquisitions, and bringing them within the reach 
of every-day men of business and toil. But, for want of sufficient "capital," 
this Journal was given up. .In 1852 appeared a History of the Literature of 
Scandinavia, written in conjunction with his wife, — the most complete account 



1 One would think that the example of Sir I ness partnerships. They do not suspect the 
Walter Scott would have shown him how dan- various " tricks of the trade," and, if they did, 
gerous it is for literary men to enter into busi- | would hardly be able to cope with them. 



658 



HO WITT. 



of that interesting literature in any language. The same year he went to 
Australia, to witness for himself the great progress of that colony. In 1854 he 
returned, and published Land, Labor, and Gold, or Two Years in Victoria, with 
Visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land, two volumes; giving, of course, an ac- 
count of his experiences in that country. More recently he has published Man 
of the People, — a novel designed to show the great progress of the people in the 
last forty years ; and has written CasselVs Illustrated History of England. 

It will thus be seen what a laborious writer Mr. Howitt has been ; and it may 
be added that every thing that has come from his pen has been of a pure and 
elevating tendency. His writings in behalf of complete suffrage, religious 
toleration, Irish relief, the abolition of slavery,^ <fec., are as honorable to the 
benevolence of his heart, as are his numerous literary works to the fertility of 
his genius. 

POLITICS INSEPARABLE FROM CHRISTIANITY. 

We are often warned against indulging in politics, as if it were 
some sinful indulgence, like swearing or gin-drinking. The reli- 
gious warn us with a solemn shake of the head ; and none more 
than the members of the Society of Friends deal in cautions 
against this bugbear of politics, " lest," say they, " it disturb the 
serenity of our minds ; lest it unfit us for religious meditation." 
Now, I am totally at a loss to comprehend the solid ground of 
these pious exhortations. It is because I am religious that I feel 
myself compelled, irresistibly compelled, to be also political. 
The very practices of the Society of Friends have educated me 
into this necessity. One excellent practice they have ; I wish it 
were universally adopted, and then we should speedily have a 
stupendous host of honest, ardent. Christian politicians. It is 
that of reading every day aloud in the family circle a portion of 
the Sacred Scriptures. I will defy any one to proceed far in the 
New Testament without coming upon practices and commands of 
our Saviour, that, if he comprehend their true and practical im- 
port, will compel him into a politician. Nay, if we go back to 
the Old Testament, what is the predicted character of the 
Saviour ? Is it merely that he shall be a spiritual Saviour ? No, 
but that he shall be a temporal one, too. He is " to open the 
prison-doors, to loosen the bonds of the captive, and to let the 
oppressed go free." But when we enter on the New Testament, 
when we come to follow that great object of our reverence and 
model of our conduct in his life, and to listen to his commands, 
there is no alternative left to us. What is the great command^ 
human duty? What is that greatest of all, next to the adora- 
tion and zealous service of our Creator ? It is to love our neigh- 



i Exemplified in his Colonization and Chris- 
tianity, which led to the formation of the Bri- 
tish India Society, to the abolition of slavery 
in the peninsula of Hindostau, and to efforts 



to relieve from oppression and stimulate to 
enterprise the myriads that inhabit that vast 
portion of the British empire. 



HO WITT. 659 

bor as ourself. But will any man tell me how we are to love our 
neighbors as ourselves, if we see them oppressed, made poor, made 
miserable, made ignorant and criminal, by the measures of a bad 
government, and this not in individual cases, but by thousands 
and tens of thousands, if we move neither hand nor foot to help 
them? If we are commanded "to do justly, to love mercy, and 
walk humbly before God ;" if we are again commanded " to do 
to others as we would be done by ;" if, again, we are told that the 
very mark and distinction of our Christianity is, that " we love 
one another ;" if w^e are told that, inasmuch as we give but a cup 
of cold water in the name of Christ to one of his very least dis- 
ciples, we give it to him : is there, let me ask you, any turn or 
escape from these great cardinal commands and injunctions ? Is 
there any exception in favor of political crimes and oppressions ? 
The greater the mischief, the greater the need of our assistance ; 
and I will boldly challenge any one to show me any causes or 
machinery of human suffering, so mighty or prolific as that of 
bad government. 

There are those, and that perhaps in nearly every third house, 
who think that religion consists in cultivating certain inward 
feelings ; in reading certain books, in making certain prayers, and 
passing through certain forms. This may be a religion of some 
kind ; but I will boldly tell all those who practise it that it is not 
the Christian religion. The religion of Christ is a religion not 
of negative virtues, but of active, ardent, generous deeds, and 
sympathies with our fellow-creatures and their sorrows. A reli- 
gion of inward feeling without outward work is the religion of 
monks, let its votaries call themselves what else they will. The 
religion of Christ led him out into the highways and hedges, into 
the streets and the market-places, and to the daily denouncement 
of public oppressors, as well as to the alleviation of private woe. 
The religion that is not prepared to attack human evils at their 
root, and to prevent them as much as possible by destroying their 
causes, has been long ago pronounced to be " a sounding brass 
and a tinkling cymbal." The man who sees trade destroyed by 
the mischievous acts of a bad government, and his poor neighbors 
suffering all round him in consequence, and does not set heartily 
to work to reform that government, to endeavor to procure a 
better system, but, on the contrary, shrinks into his house and his 
closet, lest he ruffle or excite his feelings, is but acting over again 
the proud Levite, and leaving it to the good Samaritan to pour 
the oil and the wine into his neighbor's wounds. In a word, 
Christianity is not merely a religion of principles, but of conse- 
quences ; and he who does not dare to look those principles freely 
in the face, and, without fear of man or devil, of high or low, of 
unpopularity or personal sacrifice, to carry these divine principles 
boldly out into their full, direct, and legitimate consequences — 



660 HO WITT. 

that man may talk of Christianity, but has yet to learn what it 
is. — Speech delivered at Nottingham, 1835. 



THE TRUE DIGNITY OF LABOR. 

From the foundation of the world there has been a tendency to 
look down upon labor, and upon those who live by it, with con- 
tempt, as though it were something mean and ignoble. This is 
one of those vulgar prejudices which have arisen from consider- 
ing every thing vulgar that was peculiar to the multitude. Be- 
cause the multitude have been suffered to remain too long rude 
and ignorant, every thing associated with their condition has 
been confounded with the circumstances of this condition. The 
multitude were, in their rudeness and ignorance, mean in the 
public estimation, and the labor of their hands was held to be 
mean too. Nay, it has been said that labor is the result of God's 
primary curse, pronounced on man for his disobedience. But 
that is a great mistake. God told Adam that the ground was 
cursed for his sake ; but not that his labor was cursed. He told 
him that in the sweat of his face he should eat his bread till he 
returned to the ground. But so far from labor partaking of the 
curse, it was given him as the means of triumphing over the 
curse. The ground was to produce thorns and thistles, but labor 
was to extirpate these thorns and thistles, and to cover the face 
of the earth with fruit-trees and bounteous harvests. And labor 
has done this : labor has already converted the earth, so far as its 
surface is concerned, from a wilderness into a paradise. Man 
eats his bread in the sweat of his face, but is there any bread so 
sweet as that, when he has only nature to contend with, and not the 
false arrangements of his fellow-men ? So far is labor from being 
a curse, so far is it from being a disgrace ; it is the very principle 
which, like the winds of the air, or the agitation of the sea, keeps 
the world in health. It is the very life-blood of society, stirring 
in all its veins, and diffusing vigor and enjoyment through the 
whole system. Without man's labor, God had created the world 
in vain! ^yithout our labor, all life, except that of the rudest 
and most savage kind, must perish. Arts, civilization, refine- 
ment, and religion must perish. Labor is the grand pedestal of 
God's blessings upon earth ; it is more — like man and the world 
itself — it is the offspring and the work of God. 

All honor, then, to labor, the offspring of Deity; the most 
ancient of ancients, sent forth by the Almighty into these nether 
worlds ; the most noble of nobles ! Honor to that divine princi- 
ple which has filled the earth with all the comforts, and joys, and 
afiSuence that it possesses, and is undoubtedly the instrument of 
happiness wherever life is found. Without labor, what is there? 
Without it, there were no world itself Whatever we see or per- 



HO WITT. 661 

ceive — in heaven or on the earth — is the product of labor. The 
gky above us, the ground beneath us, the air we breathe, the sun, 
the moon, the stars — what are they? The product of labor. 
They are the labors of the Omnipotent, and all our labors are 
but a continuance of His. Our work is a divine work. We 
carry on what God began. 

What a glorious spectacle is that of the labor of man upon the 
earth ! It includes every thing in it that is glorious. Look 
round, my friends, and tell me what you see that is worth seeing 
that is not the work of your hands, and of the hands of your 
fellows — the multitude of all ages? 

What is it that felled the ancient forests and cleared vast mo- 
rasses of other ages? That makes green fields smile in the sun, 
and corn rustling in the breezes of heaven, whisper of plenty and 
domestic joy? What raised first the hut, and then the cottage, 
and then the palace? What filled all these with food and furni- 
ture, — with food simple and also costly ; with furniture of infinite 
variety, from the three-legged stool to the most magnificent 
cabinet and the regal throne? What made glass, and dyed it 
with all the hues of rainbows or of summer sunsets? What con- 
structed presses and books, and filled up the walls of libraries, 
every inch of wdiich contained a mass of latent light hoarded for 
the use of ages? What took the hint from the split walnut-shell 
which some boy floated on the brook, and set on the flood first 
the boat, and then the ship, and has scattered these glorious 
children of man, the water-walking ships, over all the oceans of 
the world, and filled them with the produce of all lands, and the 
machinery and steam of profoundest inventions ? What has made 
the wide sea like a great city street, where merchants are going 
to and fro full of eager thoughts of self-accumulation, but not 
the less full of international blessings? AVhat has made the 
land like one great garden, laid down its roads that run like 
veins to every portion of the system of life, cut its canals, cast 
up its lines of railways, and driven along them, in fire and vapor, 
the awful but beneficial dragons of modern enterprise? What 
has piled up all our cities with their glittering and exhaustless 
wealth, their splendid utensils, their paintings, their mechanic 
wonders, all serving domestic life and its beloved fireside delights? 
Labor ! labor ! labor ! It is labor, and your labor, men of the 
multitude, that has done it all ! 

True, the wise ones tell us that it is intellect that has done it. 
And all honor to intellect! It is not I nor you, fellow-workers, 
who will attempt to rob the royal power of intellect of one iota 
of his renown. Intellect is also a glorious gift of the Divinity, — 
a divine principle in the earth. We set intellect at the head of 
labor, and bid it lead the vf ay to all wonders and discoveries ; 
but we know that intellect cannot go alone. Intellect cannot 

56 



662 



WATTS. 



separate itself from labor. Intellect has also its labor ; and in 
its most abstract and ethereal form cannot develop itself without 
the co-operation of its twin-brother, labor. When intellect exerts 
itself, — when it thinks, and invents, and discovers, — it then labors. 
Through the medium of labor it does all that it does ; and upon 
labor it is perfectly dependent to carry out all its mechanical 
operations. Intellect is the head, — labor the right hand. Take 
away the hand, and the head is a magazine of knowledge and 
fire that is sealed up in eternal darkness. Such are the relation- 
ships of labor and intellect. 



ALARIG ALEXANDER WATTS, 1799- 



In fastidious taste and careful finish, few poets of the present century excel 
Alaric Watts. He was born in London in 1799, and became first known to the 
public in 1822, when he published some poems under the title of Poetical 
Sketches, which were very successful. Shortly after he became editor of the 
Leeds Intelligencer, and distinguished himself by attacking the neglect and 
inhumanity of the then existing factory system. Afterwards he edited the 
Manchester Courier for a few years, and then came to London, where he edited 
the Literary Souvenir, one of the first of the "annuals," of which he brought 
out eleven volumes. They consisted of prose and poetic sketches, intermingled 
with engravings of the highest class. He also brought out the Poetical Album, 
two series, — a judicious and tasteful selection of the fugitive poetry of living 
English poets; also, Scenes of Life and Shades of Character, two volumes. In 
1833 he became editor of the United Service Gazette, then established, with 
which he continued connected for many years. In 1853 he obtained a literary 
pension of £100 a year.i 

DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN. 

" Fare thee well, thou first and fairest." — Burns. 

My sweet one, my sweet ona, the tears were in my eyes 
When first I clasp' d tliee to my heart, and heard thy feeble cries ; 
For I thought of all tliat I had borne, as I bent me down to kiss 
Thy cherry lips and sunny brow, my first-born bud of bliss 1 

I turn'd to many a wither'd hope, to years of grief and pain. 
And the cruel wrongs of a bitter world flash'd o'er my boding brain ; 
I thought of friends grown worse than cold — of persecuting foes, 
And I ask'd of Heaven if ills like these must mar thy youth's repose ? 



1 " Alaric Watts has given abundant proof," 
says Mr. Moir, " if not of high creative strength, 
of gentle pathos, of cultivated intellect, and 
an eye and ear sensitively alive to all the 
genial impulses of nature, of home-bred de- 
lights, and heartfelt happiness : he is always 



elegant and refined, and looks on carelessness 
— as every man of taste and accomplishment 
should — as a vice unworthy of an artist ; for 
poetry, assuredly, requires the learned skill, 
intuitive as that may occasionally seem, aa 
well as the teeming fancy." 



WATTS. 663 

I gazed upon thy quiet face, half blinded by my tears, 

Till gleams of bliss, unfelt before, came brightening on my fears: 

Sweet rays of hope, that fairer shone 'mid the clouds of gloom that bound 

them, 
As stars dart down their loveliest light when midnight skies are round them. 

My sweet one, my sweet one, thy life's brief hour is o'er, 

And a father's anxious fears for thee can fever me no more ! 

And for the hopes, the sun-bright hopes, that blossom'd at thy birth, — 

They, too, have fled, to prove how frail are cherish' d things of earth! 

Cradled in thy fair mother's arms, we watch'd thee, day by day, 
Pale like the second bow of heaven — as gently waste away; 
And, sick with dark foreboding fears we dared not breathe aloud. 
Sat, hand in hand, in speechless grief, to wait death's coming cloud ! 

It came at length ; o'er thy bright blue eye the film was gathering fast ; 
And an awful shade pass'd o'er thy brow, the deepest and the last ; 
In thicker gushes strove thy breath, — we raised thy drooping head ; 
A moment more, — the final pang, — and thou wert of the dead ! 

Thy gentle mother turn'd away to hide her face from me, 
And murmur'd low of Heaven's behests, and bliss attain'd by thee : 
She would have chid me that I mourn'd a doom so blest as thine, 
Had not her own deep grief burst forth in tears as wild as mine ! 

We laid thee down in thy sinless rest, and from thine infant brow 
Cull'd one soft lock of radiant hair, our only solace now ; 
Then placed around thy beauteous corse flowers not more fair and sweet, — 
Twin rosebuds in thy little hands, and jasmine at thy feet. 

Though other offspring still be ours, as fair perchance as thou, 
With all the beauty of thy cheek, tlie sunshine of thy brow, — 
They never can replace the bud our early fondness nursed ; 
They may be lovely and beloved, but not, like thee, the First I 

The First ! How many a memory bright that one sweet word can bring 
Of hopes that blossom'd, droop'd, and died in life's delightful spring ; 
Of fervid feelings pass'd away, — those early seeds of bliss 
That germinate in hearts unsear'd by such a world as this ! 

My sweet one, my sweet one, my fairest and my first ! 
Wlien I think of what thou might' st have been, my heart is like to burst ; 
But gleams of gladness through my gloom their soothing radiance dart, 
And my sighs are hush'd, my tears are dried, when I turn to what thou art ! 

Pure as the snow-flake ere it falls and takes the stain of earth, 
With not a taint of mortal life except thy mortal birth, 
God bade thee early taste the spring for which so many thirst. 
And bliss, eternal bliss, is thine, my Fairest and my First ! 



TO A CHILD BLOWING BUBBLES. 

Thrice happy babe I what radiant dreams are thine, 
As thus thou bidd'st tliine air-born bubbles soar ! 

Who would not Wisdom's choicest gifts resign 
To be, like thee, a careless child once more ? 



664 WATTS. 

To share tliy simple sports and sinless glee ; 

Thy breathless wonder, thy nnfeign'd delight, 
As, one by one, those sun-touch'd glories flee, 

In swift succession, from thy straining sight ; — 

To feel a poAver within himself to make, 
Like thee, a rainbow wheresoe'er he goes ; 

To dream of sunshine, and, like thee, to wake 
To brighter visions, from his charm'd repose ; — 

Who would not give his all of worldly lore, 

The hard-earn'd fruits of many a toil and care, — 

Might he but thus the faded past restore. 

Thy guileless thoughts and blissful ignorance share I 

Yet life hath bubbles, too, that soothe a while 
The sterner dreams of man's maturer years ; 

Love, Friendship, Fortune, Fame, by turns beguile, 
But melt 'neath Truth's Ithuriel touch to tears. 

Thrice happy child ! a brighter lot is thine ; 

What new illusion e'er can match the first? 
We mourn to see each cherish' d hope decline ; 
Thy mirth is loudest when thy bubbles burst. 



31 Y OWN FIB E SIDE. 

It is a mystic circle that surrovmds 
Comforts and virtues never known beyond 
Its hallow'd limit. Southey. 

Let others seek for empty joys 

At ball or concert, rout or play ; 
Whilst, far from Fashion's idle noise. 

Her gilded domes and trappings gay, 
I wile the wintry eve away, 

'Twixt book and lute the hours divide ; 
And marvel how I e'er could stray 

From thee, — my own fireside ! 

My own fireside ! Those simple words 

Can bid the sweetest dreams arise, 
Awaken feeling's tenderest chords, 

And fill with tears of joy mine eyes. 
What is there my wild heart can prize. 

That doth not in thy sphere abide. 
Haunt of my home-bred sympathies, 

My own, — my own fireside ? 

A gentle form is near me now ; 

A small white hand is clasp'd in mine ; 
I gaze upon her placid brow. 

And ask, what joys can equal thine ? 
A babe, whose beauties half divine, 

In sleep his mother's eyes doth hide ; 
Where may Love seek a fitter shrine 

Than thou, mv own fireside ? 



GUTHRIE. 665 

My refuge ever from the storra 

Of this worhi's passion, strife, and care ; 
Though thunder-clouds the skies deform, 

Their fury cannot reach me there ; 
There all is cheerful, calm, and fair : 

Wrath, Envy, Malice, Strife, or Pride 
Hath never made its hated lair 

By thee, — my own fireside ! 

Shrine of my household deities ! 

Bright scene of home's unsullied joys ; 
To thee my burden'd spirit flies 

When Fortune frowns, or Care annoys ! 
Thine is the bliss that never cloys ; 

The smile whose truth has oft been tried ; 
W^hat, then, are this world's tinsel toys 

To thee, — my own fireside ? 

Oh, may the yearnings, fond and sweet, 

That bid niV thoughts be all of thee, 
Thus ever guide my wandering feet 

To thy heart-soothing sanctuary ! 
Whate'er my future years may be, 

Let joy or grief my fate betide, 
Be still an Eden bright to me, 

My own, — my own fireside ! 



T HO 31 AS GUTHRIE, D.D., 1800 

Rev. Thomas Guthrie, D.D., was born in Brechin, in 1800. After he had com- 
pleted his literary- and theological studies at the University of Edinburgh, and 
had been licensed to preach, he went to Paris for the noble purpose of studying 
medicine, that he might be able, in his future pastoral duties, to administer to 
the bodies as well as the souls of his parishioners. In 1830 he was ordained 
minister of the parish of Arbirlot, and was afterwards transferred to the colle- 
giate church of Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh, and in 1840 to the new church of 
St. John's in that city. He was one of the leaders of the Free Church move- 
ment in 1843 j and in 1847, in consequence of his long and eloquent appeals and 
labors in behalf of destitute children, he was the means of establishing the 
Edinburgh original Ragged or Industrial School, in which wide field of useful- 
ness he still labors with as much zeal as his feeble health will permit. As a 
preacher he has not his equal in Edinburgh for power and eloquence. 

Dr. G. has published numerous theological w^orks; such as Tlie Parables read 
in the Light of the Present Day; Speaking to the Heart; Man and the Gospel; 
The Angels' Song; The Gospel in Ezekiel; The City, its Sins and Sorrows; 
Oar Father s Business; A Plea for Ragged Schools, &c. In 1864 his health be- 
came so much impaired that he was obliged to resign his pastoral charge, and 
he undertook to edit The Su7iday Magazine. 

Iiistead of giving an extract from any of his theological works, I present a 
short selection from one of his books designed to arouse the Christian public 
to its duty to attend to the wants, moral and physical, of destitute children. 

56* 



666 GUTHRIE. 

JUVENILE IGNORANCE AND MISERY. 

People who find it difficult enough, with all the appliances of a 
good education and religious training, to keep their children in 
the paths of honesty and rectitude, wonder that there is so much 
crime. If they saw what some of us have seen, and knew what 
some of us have known, they would still wonder, hut wonder that 
there was so little crime. To expect from those who have been 
reared in the darkest ignorance, and in a very hotbed of tempta- 
tions, any thing else but crime, is sheer folly. A man might as 
well wonder that he does not see wheat or barley growing in our 
streets, — where plough never goes, and where no seed is sown. 
What can a farmer expect to find in a field left fallow, aban- 
doned to wild nature, to the floating thistle-down, and every seed 
furnished with wings to fly, but evidence of his own neglect, in a 
rank, vile crop of weeds ? 

Look at the case of a boy whom I saw lately. He was but 
twelve years of age, and had been seven times in jail. The term 
of his imprisonment had run out, and so he had doffed the prison 
garb and resumed his own. It was the depth of winter ; and, 
having neither shoes nor stockings, his red, naked feet were upon 
the frozen ground. Had you seen him shivering in his scanty 
dress, — the misery pictured on an otherwise comely face, — the 
tears that went dropping over his cheeks as the child told his 
pitiful story, — you would have forgotten that he had been a 
thief, and only seen before you an unhappy creature more worthy 
of a kind word, a loving look, a helping hand, than the guardian- 
ship of a turnkey and the dreary solitude of a jail. His mother 
was in the grave. His father had married another woman. 
They both were drunkards. Their den, which is in the High 
Street, — I know the place, — contained one bed, reserved for the 
father, his wife, and her child. No couch was kindly spread for 
this poor child and his brother, a mother's son, then also im- 
mured in the jail. When they were fortunate enough to be 
allowed to lie at home, their only bed was the hard bare floor. 
I say fortunate enough, because on many a winter night their 
own father hounded them out. Ruffian that he was ! he drove 
his infants weeping from the door, to break their young hearts 
and bewail their cruel lot in the corner of some filthy stair, and 
sleep away the cold, dark hours as best they could, crouching 
together for warmth, like two houseless dogs. A friend listened 
with me to that true tale; and, when he saw the woe — the utter 
woe — in that child's face, the trembling of his lip, the great big 
tears that came rolling from his eyes and fell on one's heart like 
red-hot drops of iron, no wonder that he declared, with indigna- 
tion flashing in his eyes, "They have not a chance, sir; they 
have not a chance." In circumstances as hopeless, how many 
are there in every large city of the kingdom ! 



I 



MARY HO WITT. 



667 



3fAEr HO WITT, I8O4 

Mary Botiiam, the daughter of Mr. Botham, a member of the Society of 
Friends, was born in Uttoxeter in 1804. That she received an excellent and 
thorough early education her subsequent writings prove. In 1823 she became 
the wife of William Howitt, whom, in the dedication of one of her volumes, 
she styles "My best Counsellor and Teacher; my Literary Associate for a 
quarter of a century; my Husband and my Friend." After their marriage, her 
literary career became in a considerable degree blended with that of her hus- 
band, but her individual works are far more numerous than his. Her books 
for the young, written originally for her own children, amount to upwards of 
twenty volumes, and are at once instructive and entertaining, and full of 
maternal love and wisdom. Among these may be mentioned Strive and 
Thrive; Hope on, Hope Ever ; Alice Franklin; Little Coin, Mxich Care; Work 
and Wages; Steadfast Gabriel; The Children's Tear; Sketches of Natural His- 
tory; Sowing and Heaping; Which is the Wiser? Who shall be Greatest f 
Tales in Prose and Verse, &c. &c. She also wrote The Seven Temptations, a 
dramatic poem; Ballads and other Poeins;^ Hymns and Fireside Verses; Wood 
Lcighton, and The Heir of Wast Wayland, — two admirably told stories, not only 
developing country life and character, but pointing an excellent moral. She 
has also translated from the Swedish the whole of Fredrika Bremer's works, 
and from the Danish several of the works of Hans Christian Andersen and 
others ; also, translations from the German, both in prose and poetry. Besides 
this great amount of literary labor, she has contributed largely to various 
magazines and serials. 

It will thus be seen what a hard worker Mrs. Howitt has been. It is but 
justice to add that her powers have ever been directed to the advocacy of the 
true, the useful, and the good, — the alleviation of suffering, and the right edu- 
cation of the youthful mind. Indeed, she eminently deserves the distinction 
of being called the poetess of the young, the humble, and the poor. She has a 
heart that can feel for the wants and woes and trials of humanity in its hum- 
blest and most despised walks, and she pours out her soul in strains of touching, 
sympathetic tenderness that melt the heart and draw tears from the eyes. 
Childhood has for her an inexpressible charm; a reminiscence of that period, 
with her, takes precedence of every thing besides ; and for the children of the 
poor she pleads with equal earnestness and pathos. Equally fine is her sym- 
pathy with lowliness. Any thing that is humble, or dependent, or patient, or 
uncomplaining, or enduring, has a charm which attracts the intellect and 
heart of Mrs. Howitt at once.^ 



1 Though Mrs. Howitt excels in various 
styles, it is clear that her ballads are her mas- 
terpieces, and nothing can exceed the simple, 
plaintive tenderness, the unaffected, overpow- 
ering pathos, of these beautiful compositions. 

2 ''In summing up my imperfect estimate 
of Mary Howitt, I would say that no female 
poet in our literature surpasses her, and that 
but few equal her. As a versifier, as a moral- 
ist, and as a philosopher, she may safely chal- 
lenge comparison with any writer of her own 
sex, and with most of the writers of the other 
sex ; while, as regards grace, pathos, womanly 
sentiment, and Christian sympathy, she has 
scarcely 'a rival near her throne.' I believe 



that her writings have done more to elevate 
our idea of woman's intellectual character 
than all the treatises on that subject in our 
language; I believe, further, that her worka 
tend most powerfully to ameliorate, exalt, and 
purify the heart of the world; and I believe, 
finally, that she is the truest representative 
we have among our poets of that fervent, 
practical, beautiful Christianity which was 
prophesied in the song of the angels at Beth- 
lehem, — PEACE ox EARTH AND GOOD WILL AMONG 
MEN. Mrs. Howitt is indeed a writer of whom 
England may be, and will be, eternally proud." 
— iiowTON's Female Poets of Great Britain. 



668 MARY HO WITT. 

THE SALE OF THE PET LAMB. 

Oil ! poverty is a weary thing ; 'tis full of grief and pain ; 

It boweth down the heart of man and dulls his cunning brain ; 

It maketh even the little child with heavy sighs complain. 

The children of the rich man have not their bread to win ; 
They scarcely know how labor is the penalty of sin ; 
Even as the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin. 

And year by year, as life wears on, no wants have they to bear ; 
In all the luxury of the earth they have abundant share ; 
They walk along life's pleasant ways, where all is rich and fair. 

The children of the poor man, though they be young each one, 
Must rise betime each morning, before the rising sun ; 
And scarcely when the sun is set their daily task is done. 

Few things have they to call their own, to fill their hearts with pride, 
The sunshine and the summer flowers u^Don the highway side, 
And their own free companionship on heathy commons wide. 

Hunger, and cold, and Aveariness, these are a frightful three ; 
But another curse there is beside, that darkens poverty : 
It may not have one thing to love, how small soe'er it be. 

A thousand flocks were on the hills, a thousand flocks and more, 
Feeding in sunshine pleasantly; they were the rich man's store: 
There was the while one little lamb beside a cottage door ; 

A little lamb that rested Avith the children 'neath the tree. 

That ate, meek creature, from their hands, and nestled to their knee ; 

That had a place within their hearts, one of the family. 

But want, even as an armed man, came down upon their shed ; 
The father labor'd all day long, tliat his children might be fed, 
And, one by one, their household things were sold to buy them bread. 

That father, with a downcast eye, upon his threshold stood, 
Gaunt poverty each pleasant thought had in his heart subdued. 
"What is the creature's life to us?" said he; "'twill buy us food. 

"Ay, though the children weep all day, and with down-drooping head 
Each does his small task mournfully, "the hungry must be fed ; 
And that which has a price to bring must go to buy us bread." 

It went. Oh ! parting has a pang the hardest heart to wring; 
But the tender soul of a little child with fervent love doth cling, 
With love that hath no feignings false, unto each gentle thing. 

Therefore most sorrowful it was those children small to see, 
Most sorrowful to hear them plead for the lamb so piteously : 
" Oh ! mother dear, it loveth us ; and what beside have we ?" 

" Let's take him to the broad green hill !" in his impotent despair, 
Said one strong boy: "let's take him off, the hills are wide and fair; 
I know a little hiding-place, and we will keep him there." 

Oh, vain ! They took the little lamb, and straightway tied him down, 
With a strong cord they tied him fiist : and o'er the common brown, 
And o'er the hot and flinty roads, they took him to the town. 



MARY HO WITT. 669 

The little children through that day, and throughout all the morrow, 
From every thing about the house a mournful thought did borrow; 
The very bread they had to eat was food unto their sorrow. 

Oh ! poverty is a weary thing ; 'tis full of grief and pain : 
It keepeth down the soul of man as with an iron chain ; 
It maketh even the little child with heavy sighs complain. 

3I0UNTAIN CHILDREN. 

Dwellers by lake and hill, 
Merry companions of the bird and bee, 

Go gladly forth and drink of joy your fill, 
With unconstrained step and spirit free. 

No crowd impedes youx way, 
No city wall proscribes your further bounds ; 

Where the wild flocks can wander, ye may stray 
The long day through, mid summer sights and sounds. 

The sunshine and the flowers, 
And the old trees that cast a solemn shade ; 

The pleasant evening, the fresh dewy hours. 
And the green hills whereon your fathers play'd ; 

The gray and ancient peaks. 
Round which the silent clouds hang day and night ; 

And the low voice of water, as it makes, 
Like a glad creature, murmurings of delight ; 

These are your joys. Go forth, 
Give your hearts up unto their mighty power ; 
For in his spirit God has clothed the earth. 
And speaks in love from every tree and flower. 

The voice of hidden rills 
Its quiet way into your spirit finds ; 
And awfully the everlasting hills 
Address you in their many-toned winds. 

Ye sit upon the earth, 
Twining its flowers, and shouting, full of glee ; 

And a pure mighty influence, mid your mirth. 
Moulds your unconscious spirits silently. 

Hence is it that the lands 
Of storm and mountain have the noblest sons ; 

Whom the world reverences, the patriot bands, 
Were of the hills like you, ye little ones ! 

Children of pleasant song 
Are taught within the mountain solitudes ; 
For hoary legends to your Avilds belong. 
And yours are haunts where inspiration broods. 

Then go forth : earth and sky 
To you are tributary ; joys are spread 

Profusely, like the summer flowers that lie 
In the green path, beneath your gamesome tread. 



^70 MARY HOWITT. 



THE UNREGARDED TOILS OF THE POOR. 

Alas ! wliat secret tears are shed, 
What wounded spirits bleed, 

What loving hearts are sundered, 
And yet man takes no heed ! 

He goeth in his daily course. 

Made fat with oil and wine. 
And pitieth not the weary souls 

That in his bondage pine, 
That turn for him the mazy wheel. 

That delve for him the mine ! 
And pitieth not the children small. 

In smoky factories dim, 
That all day long, lean, pale, and faint, 

Do heavy tasks for him ! 

To him they are but as the stones 

Beneath his feet that lie : 
It entereth not his thoughts that they 

With him claim sympathy : 
It entereth not his thoughts that God 

Heareth the sufferer's groan, 
That in His righteous eye their life 

Is precious as His own. 

FATHER IS COMING. 

The clock is on the stroke of six, 

The father's work is done ; 
Sweep up the hearth and mend the fire, 

And put the kettle on, 
The wild night-wind is blowing cold, 
'Tis dreary crossing o'er the wold. 

He is crossing o'er the wold apace. 
He is stronger than the storm ; 

He does not feel the cold, not he, 
Plis heart it is so warm. 

For fathei-'s heart is stout and true 

As ever human bosom knew. 

He makes all toil, all hardship, light ; 

Would all men were the same ! 
So ready to be pleased, so kind. 

So very slow to blame ! 
Folks need not be unkind, austere. 
For love hath readier will than fear. 

Nay, do not close the shutters, child ; 

For far along the lane 
The little window looks, and he 

Can see it shining plain. 
I've heard him say he loves to mark 
The cheerful firelight through the dark. 



MOULTRIE. 

And we'll do all that father likes ; 

His wishes are so few. 
Would they were more ! that every hour 

Some wish of his I knew ! 
I'm sure it makes a happy day 
When I can please him any way. 

I know he's coming,by this sign, 

That baby's almost wild ; 
See how he laughs and crows and stares ! 

Heaven bless the merry child ! 
He's father's self in face and limb, 
And father's heart is strong in him. 

Hark ! hark ! I hear his footsteps now ; 

He's through the garden-gate ; 
Bun, little Bess, and ope the door, 

And do not let him Avait. 
Shout, baby, shout ! and clap thy hands, 
For father on the threshold stands. 



671 



JOHN MOULTRIE, 180 J^- 



Eev. John Moultrie, the son of a country clergyman, was born about the 
year 1804, and was educated at Eton and Cambridge. In 1825 he was ordained 
deacon, and soon after was presented to the rectory of Eugby, Warwickshire. 
He is the author of My Brother's Grave, and other Poems, 1837 ; The Dream of 
Life, Lays of the English Cliurch, <fec., 1843 ; Memoir and Poetical Ponains of 
William S. Walker, 1852 ; Altars, Hearths and Graves, 1853.1 

31 Y BROTHER'S GRAVE. 

Beneath the chancel's hallow'd stone, 

Exposed to every rustic tread. 
To few, save rustic mourners, known, 

My brother, is thy lowly bed. 
• Few words, upon thy rough stone graven, 

Thy name — thy birth — thy youth declare — 
Thine innocence — thy hopes of heaven, 

In simplest plirase recorded there. 

■X- ^ ^ -x- * 

My brother, those were happy days 

When thou and I were children yet ! 
How fondly memory still surveys 

Those scenes, the heart can ne'er forget ! 



1 Some of his pieces were favorites with the 
late Mr. Gifford, of the Qunrferli/ Rrview, — a 
not very lenient judge: and Dr. Moir pro- 
nounces him " a poet of elegant mind and con- 
siderable pathetic power." Again, he says, 



" Ilis verses on his brother's grave are particu- 
larly striking; and I am not aware of any 
prototype for the fine, fresh stanzas to My Scot' 

tish Lassie." 



672 MOULTRIE. 

My sonl was then, as tliine is now, 

Unstain'd by sin, iinstung by pain : 
Peace smiled on each unclouded brow, — 

Mine ne'er will be so calm again. 
How blithely then we hail'd the ray 
Which usher'd in the Sabbath-day ! 
How lightly then our footsteps trod 
Yon pathway to the house of God ! 
For souls, in which no dark offence 
Hath sullied childhood's iimocence, 
Best meet the pure and hallow' d shrine, 
Which guiltier bosoms own divine. 

I feel not now as then I felt ; — 

The sunshine of my heart is o'er ; 
The spirit now is changed which dwelt 

Within me in the days of yore. 
But thou wert snatch' d, my brother, hence 
In all thy guileless innocence : 
One Sabbath saw thee bend the knee, 
In reverential piety, — 
(For childish faults forgiveness crave) — 
The next beam'd brightly on thy grave. 

I stood not by thy feverish bed, 

I look'd not on thy glazing eye, 
Nor gently lull'd thy aching head. 

Nor view'd thy dying agony ; 
I felt not what my parents felt, — 

The doubt — the terror — the distress ; — 
Nor vainly for my brother knelt ; — 

My soul was spared that wretchedness : 
One sentence told me, in a breath, 
My brother's illness and his death ! 

***** 
I drew near to my father's gate ; 

No smiling faces met me now : 
I enter' d, — all was desolate — 

Grief sat upon my mother's brow ; 
I heard her, as she kiss'd me, sigh ; 
A tear stood in my father's eye ; 
My little brothers round me press'd. 
In gay, unthinking childhood bless'd. 
Long,' long that hour has pass'd ; but when 
Shall I forget its gloomy scene ? 

***** 
And years have pass'd, — and thou art now 

Forgotten in thy silent tomb ; 
And cheerful is my mothei-'s brow ; 

My father's eye has lost its gloom : 
And years have pass'd, — and death has laid 

Another victim by thy side ! 
With thee he roams, an infant shade. 

But not more pure than thee he died. 
Bless'd are ye both ! your ashes rest 
Beside the spot ye loved the best; 



MOULTRIE. 673 

And that dear home, which saw your birth, 
O'erlooks you in your bed of earth. 
But who can tell what blissful shore 
Your angel-spirits wander o'er ! 
And who can tell what raptures high 
Now bless your immortality ! 

My boyish days are nearly gone ; 

My breast is not unsullied now ; 
And worldly cares and woes will soon 

Cut their deep furrows on ray broWj — 
And life will take a darker hue 
From ills my brother never knew : 
And I have made me bosom friends, 

And loved, and link'd my heart with others ; 
But who with mine his spirit blends, 

As mine was blended with my brother's ! 
When years of rapture glided by. 

The spring of life's unclouded weather, 
Our souls were knit, and thou and I, 

My brother, grew in love together ; 
The chain is broke that bound us then ; 
When shall I find its like again ? 



HEBE'S TO THEE, MY SCOTTISH LASSIE. 

Here's to tiiee, my Scottish lassie ! here's a hearty health to thee ! 

For thine eye so bright, thy form so light, and thy step so firm and free; 

For all thine artless elegance, and all thy native grace ; 

For the music of thy mirthful voice, and the sunshine of thy face ; 

For thy guileless look and speech sincere, yet sweet as speech can be, — 

Here's a health, my Scottish lassie ! here's a hearty health to thee ! 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! Though my glow of youth is o'tr, 
And I, as once I felt and dream'd, must feel and dream no more ; 
Though the world, with all its frosts and storms, has chill'd my soul at lasi, 
And genius with the foodful looks of youthful friendship pass'd ; 
Though my path is dark and lonely, now, o'er this world's dreary sea, 
Here's a health, my Scottish lassie ! here's a hearty health to thee ! 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! though I know that not for me 

Is thine eye so bright, thy form so light, and thy step so firm and free ; 

Tliough thou, with cold and careless looks, wilt often pass me by, 

Unconscious of ray swelling heart and of ray wistful eye ; 

Though thou wilt wed some Highland love, nor waste one thought on me. 

Here's a health, my Scottish lassie ! here's a hearty health to thee ! 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! when I meet thee in the throng 

Of merry youths and maidens dancing lightsoraely along, 

I'll dream away an hour or twain, still gazing on thy form, 

As it flashes through the baser crowd, like lightning through a storm ; 

And I, perhaps, shall touch thy hand, and share thy looks of glee, 

And for once, my Scottish lassie, dance a giddy dance with thee ! 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie! I shall think of thee at even. 
When I see its first and fairest star come smiling up through heaven ; 
I shall hear thy sweet and touching voice in every wind that grieves. 
As it whirls from the abandon'd oak its wither'd autumn leaves ; 

57 



674 



LYTTON. 



In the gloom of the wild forest, in the stillness of the sea, 
I shall think, my Scottish lassie, I shall often think of thee ! 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! In my sad and lonely hours. 
The thought of thee comes o'er me like the breath of distant flowers : 
Like the music that enchants mine ear, the sights that bless mine eye, 
Like the verdure of the meadow, like the azure of the sky, 
Like the rainbow in the evening, like the blossoms on the tree. 
Is the thought, my Scottish lassie, is the lonely thought of thee. 

Here's a health, my Scottish lassie ! — here's a parting health to thee ! 
May thine be still a cloudless lot, though it be far from me ! 
May still thy laughing eye be bright, and open still thy brow, 
Thy thoughts as pure, thy speech as free, thy heart as light as now ! 
And, whatsoe'er my after-fate, my dearest toast shall be, — 
Still a health, my Scottish lassie ! still a hearty heahh to thee ! 



EDWARD BULWER LYTTON,^ 1805- 



This very versatile writer, — novelist, poet, dramatist, critic, historian, and 
essayist, — the youngest son of General Bulwer, of Norfolk, was born in 1805, 
and educated at Cambridge, where, in 1825, he gained the "chancellor's prize" 
for his English poem on Sculpture. In 1827 appeared his first noi^\,— Falk- 
land,— \v\\\ch was followed, in the five succeeding years, by Felham, The Dis- 
owned, Devereux, Paul Clifford, and Eugene ^ram,— thus completing what 
might be called his first period of authorship. That all these works show 
great talent in delineating character, a lively fancy, and no small powers of 
sarcasm, and contain many passages of eloquent sentiment and rich descrip- 
tion, no one will deny; but that their general moral tone is an unhealthy one, 
not tending to make the reader wiser or better or happier, all must admit; and 
they cannot give to their author any permanently enviable fame. 

About 1831 he succeeded Campbell as editor of the New Monthly Magazine; 
soon after which, he published his poem of Milton,"^ which is considered his 
best work in verse. In 18.33 appeared England and the English, a series of acute 
and sarcastic sketches of national manners. This was followed by Pilgrims of 
the Rhine, an illustrated book ; The Last Days of Pompeii, an interesting clas- 
sical story; and Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes, the best of all his romantic 
fictions. In 1836 he published a play, — The Duchess of La Valliere,— which 
was a failure.3 The next year came Ernest Maltravers, containing his views 



1 He was Sir Edward Bulwer till 1843, when, 
on the death of his mother, who was of the 
ancient family of Lytton, of Hertfordshire, he 
succeeded to her estates and adopted her 
family name. Hia name in full is Edward 
George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton. 

2 Founded on a traditionary incident in the 
college life of the great epic poet, that, while 
walking out in the fields on a beautiful sum- 
mer's day, he lay down under a tree and fell 
asleep. While thus sleeping, an Italian lady 
of rank rode by in her carriage, and, struck 
with his unequalled beauty, left a card at his 



side, expressing her admiration of him. " The 
res^ult of the whole is a noble picture of the 
bard of Comus, in his youth, manhood, and 
age, connected by reference to a tradition 
which most of us cherish, but which Sir Bul- 
wer Lytton's muse has woven into consist- 
ency." ftRead an article in the London Quar- 
terly, A$rU, 1865. 

3 He afterwards published two plays, — 77ie 
Lady of Lyons, and Richelieu, — which are still 
popular, I believe, with theatre-goers; also, 
T/ie Sea-Captain, in five acts; Money, in five 
acts ; and Not so Bad as we Seem, in five acts. 



LYTTON. 



675 



of art and life; succeeded by Athens, its Rise and Fall, — "full of research and 
splendid rhetoric." Upon the coronation of Her Majesty Victoria, in 1838, he 
was created a baronet, "as the appropriate representative of British literature." 
In this year appeared Leila, or the Siege of Granada, and Calderon, the Courtier, 
— works of fiction of a lighter order; which were followed by others, entitled 
Night and Morning, Day and Night, Lights and Shadows, and Glimmer and Gloom. 
Then came Zanoni, a tale of the supernatural, — " the well-loved work," as he 
calls it, "of his mature manhood." In 1846 appeared The New Timon; and in 
1848, King Arthur,^oih. poems of considerable merit. His next novels were — 
The Last of the Barons, Harold, and Lucretia. 

He now entered into a new walk of fiction, in Ify Novel, The Caxtons, and 
What will He do with It? — "in which the novelist, turning from baser ore, has 
struck upon a vein of pure and lustrous gold,"i and given us works far in ad- 
vance of his early productions.^ In 1862 he published A Strange Sto7y, which 
first appeared in All the Year Round; and in 1863 he gave us Caxtoriiana, or 
Essays on Life, Literature, and Manners. In addition to all these works of 
fiction, plays, poems, and essays, Sir Bulwer Lytton has contributed numerous 
articles to the Westminster and Edinburgh Review. In 1841 he wrote A His- 
torical Revieio of the State of England at the Accession of Queen Victoria; and in 
1845, having received a wonderful renovation of his own health at a water-cure 
establishment, he published The Confessions of a Water Patient. 

His political career, if not so marked as his literary, has been one highly 
creditable to himself. At the age of twenty-six he entered Parliament as 
member for St. Ives, and was returned at other times from other places, making 
his whole term of service about fourteen years, down to 1858, when he became 
a member of the Cabinet (Colonial Secretary) under the Derby administration. 
But with the resignation of Lord Derby's government in 1859, he retired from 
office with the rest of his colleagues. Though not a frequent debater, he was 
considered one of the most finished speakers in the House, and always won 
its earnest and respectful attention. 

It will thus be seen what an active and prolific life Sir Edward Bulwer Lyt- 
ton's has been. No one can fail to be struck with his prodigious industry and 
voluminousness as an author; for he has given to the world more than forty 
distinct works, most of them originally in three volumes. In every department 
of literature which he has attempted he has done well, — in most, very well; 
but it is upon his novels that his fame will ultimately rest, and these will ever 
entitle him to a distinguished place in English literature.^ 



1 Collier. 

2 They are English stories, " uniting the cha- 
racteristics of town and country life, and pre- 
Benting the contrasts of national character." 

8 " No one has been more successful than 
the man whom a hundred thousand readers 
hail as the first of living novelists, the Prince 
of Fiction, the great modern apostle of the 



Beautiful and the True."— Westminster Review, 
April, 1865. 

"It can hardly be doubted that, when re- 
garded with candor and without prejudice, he 
is entitled to rank among the greater and finer 
intellects of his day, and may reasonably urge 
pretensions to a prominent niche in the tem- 
ple of literary fame." — Quarterly Heview, 
April, 1865. 



676 LYTTON. 



DEATH OF GAWTREY, THE COINER.^ 

At both doors now were heard the sounds of voices. " Open, in 
the king's name, or expect no mercy!" "Hist!" said Gawtrey. 
" One way yet, — the window — the rope." 

Morton opened the casement ; Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The 
dawn was breaking ; it was light in the streets, but all seemed 
quiet without. The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure 
of the pursuers. Gawtrey flung the rope across the street to the 
opposite parapet ; after two or three efforts, the grappling-hook 
caught firm hold, — the perilous path w^as made. 

" Go first," said Morton ; " I will not leave you now ; you will 
be longer getting across than I shall. I will keep guard till you 
are over." 

"Hark! hark! are you mad? Fow keep guard ! What is your 
strength to mine? Twenty men shall not move that door w^hile 
my weight is against it. Quick, or you destroy us both ! Besides, 
you will hold the rope for me ; it may not be strong enough for 
my bulk of itself. Stay! — stay one moment. If you escape, and 
I fall — Fanny — my father, he will take care of her — you remem- 
ber — thanks ! Forgive me all ! Go ; that's right !" 

With a firm pulse Morton threw himself on that dreadful 
bridge ; it swung and crackled at his weight. Shifting his grasp 
rapidly — holding his breath — with set teeth — with closed eyes- 
he moved on — he gained the parapet — he stood safe on the oppo- 
site side. And now, straining his eyes across, he saw through the 
open casement into the chamber he had just quitted. Gawtrey 
was still standing against the door to the principal staircase ; for 
that of the two was the weaker and the more assailed. Presently 
the explosion of a firearm was heard ; they had shot through the 
panel. Gawtrey seemed wounded, for he staggered forward and 
uttered a fierce cry ; a moment more, and he gained the window — • 
he seized the rope — he hung over the tremendous depth ! Morton 
knelt by the parapet, holding the grappling-hook in its place 
with convulsive grasp, and fixing his eyes, bloodshot with fear 
and suspense, on the huge bulk that clung for life to that slender 
cord! 

" Le voila ! le voila .'" cried a voice from the opposite side. 
Morton raised his gaze from Gawtrey ; the casement was darkened 
by the forms of the pursuers, — they had burst into the room — an 
officer sprung upon the parapet, and Gawtrey, now aware of his 
danger, opened his eyes, and, as he moved on, glared upon the 
foe. The policeman deliberately raised his pistol — Gawtrey ar- 



1 From Niffht and Morning. Gawtrey, the I and pursxied to the garret in which they have 
chief of a gang of coiners in Paris, and his been living, 
associate, Morton, are detected by the police, | 



LYTTON. ^'J'J 

rested himself — from a wound in his side the blood trickled 
slowly and darkly down, drop by drop, upon the stones below ; 
even the officers of law shuddered as they eyed him ; his hair 
bristling — his cheek white — his lips drawn convulsively from 
his teeth, and his eyes glaring from beneath the frown of agony 
and menace in which yet spoke the indomitable power and fierce- 
ness of the man. His look, so fixed, so intense, so stern, awed 
the policeman ; his hand trembled as he fired, and the ball struck 
the parapet an inch below the spot where Morton knelt. An in- 
distinct, wild, gurgling sound — half laugh, half yell — of scorn 
and glee, broke from Gaw trey's lips. He swung himself on — 
near — near — nearer — a yard from the parapet. 

" You are saved !" cried Morton ; when at that moment a volley 
burst from the fatal casement — the smoke rolled over both the 
fugitives — a groan, or rather howl, of rage, and despair, and 
agony, appalled even the hardiest on whose ear it came. Morton 
sprung to his feet and looked below. He saw on the rugged 
stones, far down, a dark, formless, motionless mass — the strong 
man of passion and levity — the giant who had played with life 
and soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes and breaks 
— was what the Csesar and the leper alike are, when all clay is 
without God's breath — what glory, genius, power, and beauty 
would be forever and forever, if there were no God ! 

POMPEII. 

Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when the city of 
Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with un- 
dimmed hues ; its walls fresh as if painted yesterday, — not a hue 
faded on the rich mosaic of its floors, — in its forum the half-fin- 
ished columns as left by the workman's hand, — before the trees 
in its gardens the sacrificial tripod, — in its halls the chest of 
treasure, — in its baths the strigil, — in its theatres the counter of 
admission, — in its saloons the furniture and the lamp, — in its tri- 
clinia the fragments of the last feast, — in its cubicula the per- 
fumes and the rouge of faded beauty, — and everywhere the bones 
and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute 
yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life ! 

In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty 
skeletons (one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the 
door, covered by a fine ashen dust that had evidently been wafted 
slowly through the aperture until it had filled the whole space. 
There were jewels and coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and 
wine hardened in the amphorae, — vain precautions for the pro- 
longation of agonized life! The sand, consolidated by damps, 
had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast ; and the travel- 
ler may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of 

57* 



678 LYTTOX. 

young and round proportions, — the trace of the fated Julia ! It 
seems to the inquirer as if the air had been gradually changed 
into a sulphureous vapor, the inmates of the vaults had rushed 
to the door to find it closed and blocked by the scorise without^ 
and in their attempts to force it had been suffocated by the atmos- 
phere. 

In the garden was found a skeleton, with a key by its bony 
hand, and near it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been 
the master of the house, — the unfortunate Diomed, who had pro- 
bably sought to escape by the garden, and been destroyed either 
by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some silver 
vases lay another skeleton, — probably of a slave. 

The houses of Sallust and of Pansa, the temple of Isis, with 
the juggling concealments behind the statues, — the lurking-place 
of its holy oracles, — are now bared to the gaze of the carious. 
In one of the chambers of that temple was found a huge skeleton, 
with an axe beside it : two walls had been pierced by the axe, — 
the victim could penetrate no farther. In the midst of the city 
was found another skeleton, laden with coins, and many of the 
mystic ornaments of the fane of Isis. Death had fallen upon 
him in his avarice, and Calenus perished simultaneously with 
Burbo ! As the excavators cleared on through the mass of ruin, 
they found the skeleton of a man literally severed in two by a 
prostrate column ; the skull Avas of so remarkable a conformation, 
so boldly marked in its intellectual, as well as its worse physical, 
developments, that it has excited the constant speculation of 
every itinerant believer in the theories of Spurzheim who has 
gazed upon that ruined palace of the mind. Still, after a lapse 
of eighteen centuries, the traveller may survey that airy hall, 
within whose cunning galleries and elaborate chambers once 
thought, reasoned, dreamed, and sinned the soul of Arbaces the 
Egyptian ! 

Viewing the various witnesses of a social system which has 
passed from the world forever, a stranger, from that remote and 
barbarian isle which the imperial Koman shivered when he named, 
paused amid the delights of the soft Campania, and composed 
this History ! 

CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY.^ 

You speak of the growing sect of the Christians in Eome. Sal- 
lust, to you I may confide my secret: I have pondered much over 
that faith, — I have adopted it. After the destruction of Pompeii, I 
met once more with Olinthus, — saved, alas! only for a day, and 
falling afterward a martyr to the indoniitable energy of his zeal. 

1 This is an extract from a letter from Glaucus to Sallust, tea years after the destruction of 
Pompeii. 



LYTTON. 679 

In my preservation from the lion and the earthquake, he taught 
me to behold the hand of the unknown God! I listened — believed 
■ — adored ! My own, my more than ever beloved lone has also 
embraced the creed! a creed, Sallust, which, shedding light over 
this world, gathers its concentrated glory, like a sunset, over the 
next! We know^ that we are united in the soul, as in the flesh, 
forever and forever! Ages may roll on, our very dust be dis- 
solved, the earth shrivelled like a scroll, but round and round 
the circle of eternity rolls the wheel of life, — imperishable, — un- 
ceasing! And as the earth from the sun, so immortality drinks 
happiness from virtue, ichich is the smile upon the face of God ! 
Visit me, then, Sallust ; bring with you the learned scrolls of 
Epicurus, Pythagoras, Diogenes; arm yourself for defeat, and 
let us, amid the groves of Academus, dispute, under a surer guide 
than any granted to our fathers, on the mighty problem of the 
true ends of life and the nature of the soul. 



.OLYMPIC FESTIVAL. 

If, warmed for a moment from the gravity of the historic muse, 
we might conjure up the picture of this festival, we would invoke 
the imagination of the reader to that sacred ground, decorated 
with the profusest triumphs of Grecian art, — all Greece assembled 
from her continent, her colonies, her isles, — war suspended, — a 
sabbath of solemnity and rejoicing, — the Spartan no longer grave, 
the Athenian forgetful of the forum, — the high-born Thessalian, 
— the gay Corinthian, — the lively gestures of the Asiatic Ionian; 
— suffering the various events of various times to confound them- 
selves in one recollection of the past, he may see every eye turned 
from the combatants to one majestic figure, — hear every lip mur- 
muring a single name, — glorious in greater fields : Olympia itself 
is forgotten. Who is the spectacle of the day? Themistocles, 
the conqueror of Salamis, and the saviour of Greece! Again, 
the huzzas of countless thousands following the chariot-wheels 
of the competitors, — whose name is shouted forth, the victor 
without a rival? — it is Alcibiades, the destroyer of Athens! 
Turn to the temple of the Olympian god, pass the brazen gates, 
proceed through the columned aisles, — what arrests the awe and 
W'onder of the crowd? Seated on a throne of ebon and of ivory, 
of gold and gems, — the olive crown on his head, in his right 
hand the statue of victory, in his left, wrought of all metals, the 
cloud-compelling sceptre, — behold the colossal masterpiece of 
Phidias, the Homeric dream embodied, the majesty of the Olym- 
pian Jove ! Enter the banquet-room of the conquerors ; to wdiose 
verse, hymned in a solemn and mighty chorus, bends the listening 
Spartan ? — it is the verse of the Dorian Pindar ! In that motley 
and glittering space (the fair of Olympia, the mart of every 



680 HENR Y RO GERS. 

commerce, the focus of all intellect) join the throng, earnest and 
breathless, gathered round that sunburnt traveller; now drinking 
in the wild account of Babylonian gardens, or of temples whose 
awful deity no lip may name ; now, with clenched hands and 
glowing cheeks, tracking the march of Xerxes along exhausted 
rivers, and over bridges that spanned the sea ; what moves, what 
hushes that mighty audience? It is Herodotus reading his 
history ! 



HENRY ROGERS. 1806- 



This eminent critic and essayist was born at St. Alban's in 1806. and studied 
at Highbury,, with a view to the ministry; but. owing to his delicate health 
and very feeble voice, he felt it a duty to relinquish his cherished plans and 
to devote himself to literature. In 1836 he was appointed Professor of the 
English Language and Literature, University College, London, but resigned 
in 1839 for the chair of Philosophy in the Independent College, Birmingham, 
where he remained till 1858, when he accepted the Principalship of the Lan- 
cashire Independent College, Manchester, on the resignation of Dr. Vaughan. 

Mr. Rogers's first literary efforts were critical Essays on the Genius and 
Writings of Jonathan Edioards, Edmund Burke, Jeremy Taylor, and Tho7nas 
Fuller, prefixed to editions of those authors. He also contributed numerous 
articles to the Edinburgh Review, such as The Genius of Plato ; Recent Develop- 
ments of Puseyism ; Vanity and Glory of Literature, &c. His chief publications 
are Eclipse of Faith, in reply to Mr. F. W. Newman's Phases of Faith, and a 
Zife of John Howe. As a writer, his style is clear and manly, and his thought 
acute, vigorous, and occasionally highly eloquent, as may be seen in the fol-, 
lowing beautiful passage upon 

THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 

Humanity will never forget those glorious scenes with which 
the evangelical narrative abounds ; men still wonder at the 
" gracious words which proceeded out of Christ's mouth," and 
persist in saying, " Never man spake like this man." The bright- 
ness of the brightest names pales and wanes before the radiance 
which shines from the person of Christ. The scenes at the tomb 
of Lazarus, at the gate of Nain, in the happy family at Bethany, 
in the "upper room" where He instituted the feast which should 
forever consecrate His memory, and bequeathed to His disciples 
the legacy of His love; the scenes in the Garden of Gethsemaiie, 
on the summit of Calvary, and at the sepulchre ; the sweet re- 
membrance of the patience with which He bore wrong, the gentle- 
ness with which He rebuked it, and the love with which He 
forgave it ; the thousand acts of benign condescension by which 
He well earned for himself, from seff-righteous pride and ceii- 






IIENR Y R O GEES. 681 

sorious hypocrisy, the name of the "friend of publicans and 
sinners ;" these, and a hundred things more, which crowd those 
concise memorials of love and sorrow with such prodigality of 
beauty and of pathos, will still continue to charm and attract 
the soul of humanity, and on these the highest genius, as well as 
the humblest mediocrity, will love to dwell. These things lisping 
infancy loves to hear on its mother's knees, and over them age, 
with its gray locks, bends in devoutest reverence. No; before 
the infidel can prevent the influence of these compositions, he 
must get rid of the Gospels themselves, or he must supplant them 
hj fictions yet more wonderful! Ah, what bitter irony has in- 
voluntarily escaped me ! But if the last be impossible, at least 
the Gospels must cease to exist before infidelity can succeed. 
Yes, before infidels can prevent men from thinking as they have 
ever done of Christ, they must blot out the gentle words with 
which, in the i^resence of austere hypocrisy, the Saviour welcomed 
that timid guilt that could only express its silent love in an agony 
of tears ; they must blot out the words addressed to the dying 
penitent, who, softened by the majestic patience of the mighty 
sufferer, detected at last the Monarch under the veil of sorrow, 
and cast an imploring glance to be " remembered by Him when 
He came into His kingdom ;" they must blot out the scene in 
which the demoniacs sat listening at His feet, and "in their 
right mind ;" they must blot out the remembrance of the tears 
which He shed at the grave of Lazarus, — not surely for him 
whom He was about to raise, but in pure sympathy with the 
sorrow^s of humanity, — for the myriad myriads of desolate mourners, 
who could not, with Mary, fly to Him, and say, "Lord, if thou 
hadst been here, my mother, brother, sister, had not died !" they 
must blot out the record of those miracles which charm us, not 
only as the proof of His mission, and guarantees of the truth of 
His doctrine, but as they illustrate the benevolence of His cha- 
racter and are types of the spiritual cures His gospel can yet 
perform ; they must blot out the scenes of the sepulchre, where 
love and veneration lingered, and saw what was never seen before, 
but shall henceforth be seen to the end of time, — the tomb itself 
irradiated with angelic forms, and bright with the presence of 
Him " who brought life and immortality to light ;" they must blot 
out the scene where deep and grateful love wept so passionately, 
and found Him unbidden at her side, type of ten thousand times 
ten thousand, who have " sought the grave to weep there," and 
found joy and consolation in Him "whom, though unseen, they 
loved ;" they must blot out the discourses in which He took leave 
of his disciples, the majestic accents of which have filled so many 
departing souls with patience and with triumph ; they must blot 
out the yet sublimer words in which He declares himself " the 
resurrection and the life," — words which have led so many mil- 



682 



WARREN. 






lions more to breathe out their spirits with childlike trust, an 
to believe, as the gate of death closed behind them, that they 
would see Him who is invested with the " keys of the invisible 
world," "who opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man 
opens," letting in through the portal which leads to immortality 
the radiance of the skies ; they must blot out, they must destroy, 
these and a thousand other such things, before they can prevent 
Him having the pre-eminence who loved, because He loved us, 
to call himself the " Son of Man," though angels called him the 
"Son of God." At His feet guilty humanity, of diverse races 
and nations, for eighteen hundred years, has come to pour forth 
in ftiith and love its sorrows, and finds there "the peace which 
the world can neither give nor take away." Myriads of aching 
heads and weary hearts have found, and will find, repose there, 
and have invested Him with veneration, love, and gratitude, 
which will never, never be paid to any other name than His. 



SAMUEL WARREN, 1807 

Few writers of fiction of the present century hold a more powerful pen than 
Samuel Warren. He was born in 1807, and was educated in the University of 
Edinburgh, with the view of entering the medical profession ; but he aban- 
doned this intention, and entered the Middle Temple as a lawyer, and was 
called to the bar in 1837. In the mean time there appeared in Blackivood's 
Magazine a series of papers, entitled Passages from the Diary of a late Physician,^- 
the descriptions in which were so lifelike and graphic, that the writer was 
denounced in the medical paper called The Lancet for revealing the secrets of 
the sick-chamber. In 1839 he commenced in Blackivood another series, — Ten 
Thousand a Year. This was followed by Now and Then.'^ In these works he 
displayed high talents as a novelist, in vivid painting of the passions, and in 
faithfully depicting scenes of modern life. After the Great Exhibition he pub- 
lished The Lily and the Bee, in commemoration of that event; but it added 
nothing to his reputation. 

In his profession he is considered an able pleader, and he has published 
several excellent professional works; of these, the best known are his Jn^ro- 
duction to Laiv Studies, and his edition of Blackstone Abridged. 



1 Of this work, the Oxford and Cambridge 
Review remarks, " We know of no book in the 
English language so calculated to rivet the 
attention and awaken the purest and deepest 
sympathies of the heart as this book. The 
nian who has not read these tales has yet to 
learn a lesson in the mysteries of human na- 
ture; and, though Ten Thousand a Year may, 
as a literary composition, claim precedence, 
we think it lacks something — a very little — 
of that truthful simplicity, that trusting aud 



religious fervor, that refines every sentiment 
and hallows every aspiration inspired by the 
elder work." 

2 Of this, the London Times said, " A vindi- 
cation, in beautiful piose, of the ways of God 
to man. A grander moral is not to be found 
than that which dwells on the reader's mind 
when the book is closed; conveyed, too, as it 
is, in language as masculine and eloquent as 
any the English tongue can furnish." 



WARREN. 683 



LIFE. 



As the metapliysician is unable to tell us what constitutes the 
mind, so it is with the physiologist with reference to life. His 
most rigorous analyses have totally failed to detect what is the 
precise nature of that mysterious force — if one may use the word 
— which we designate by the word " Life !" He sees its infinitely 
varied modes of existence and action ; but what it is that so exists 
and acts is now as completely hidden from the highly-trained eye 
of the modern physiologist as it was from the keen and eager eye 
of Aristotle. * * * j^^^^i ^g j-^^j^^ j-^^g hitherto been baffled in 
all his attempts to discover the nature of life, so has it been with 
him in respect of death. The awful question of the Almighty 
himself to Job remains unanswered : — " Have the gates of death 
been opened unto theef or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow 
of death. ^" 

FRUITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

It is to Christianity alone that the world was first indebted for 
those noble monuments of charity and mercy which are to be 
found in our hospitals, infirmaries, and other similar institutions. 
Not a trace of them is to be found among the refined and highly- 
cultivated Greeks and Romans. The Christian agencies now at 
work to civilize mankind are fed direct from the twin founts of 
inspiration and morality. They are gradually chasing away the 
shadows of ignorance and sensuality, and melting the manacles 
and fetters in which cruelty and vice have bound mankind for 
ages. " The whole Avorld will be Japhetized, — which, in religious 
matters, means, now pre-eminently, that it must be Christianized 
by the agency of the Teutonic element. Japhet holds the torch 
of light, to kindle the heavenly fire in all the other families of 
the one undivided and indivisible human race. Christianity 
enlightens only a small portion of the globe ; but it will advance, 
jand is already advancing, triumphantly over the whole earth, 
in the name of Christ and in the light of the Spirit."^ That 
Christianity has a vital influence over individuals and the nations' 
which they compose. The presence and the absence of it are 
equally recognized, seen, and felt. 

DEATH AT THE TOILET. 
'Tis no use talking to me, mother ; I will go to Mrs. P- 



party to-night, if I die for it, — that's flat ! You know as well as 

I do that Lieutenant N is to be there, and he's going to leave 

town to-morrow ; so up I go to dress." 



1 From that eminent Prussian statesman and philosophical writer, Baron C. Q. J. Bunsen, 
who died November 28, 1860. 



6(S4 WARREN. 

"Charlotte, why will you be so obstinate? You know how 

poorly you have been all the week, and Dr. says late hours 

are the worst things in the world for you." 

" Pshaw, mother ! nonsense ! nonsense !" 

" Be persuaded for once, now, I beg ! Oh, dear, dear, what a 
night it is, too ! it pours with rain, and blows a perfect hurricane! 
You'll be wet and catch cold, rely on it. Come, now, won't you 
stop and keep me company to-night? That's a good girl!" 

" Some other night will do as well for that, you know ; for now 

I'll go to Mrs. P 's, if it rains cats and dogs. So up — up — up 

I go !" 

Such were very nearly the words, and such the manner, in which 

Miss J expressed her determination to act in defiance of her 

mother's wishes and entreaties. She was the only child of her 
widowed mother, and had but a few weeks before completed her 
twenty-sixth year, with yet no other prospect before her than 
bleak single-blessedness. A weaker, more frivolous and con- 
ceited creature never breathed, — the torment of her amiable 
parent, — the nuisance of her acquaintance. Though her mother's 
circumstances w^ere very straitened, — sufficing barely to enable 
them to maintain a footing in what is called the middling genteel 
class of society, — this young woman contrived, by some means or 
other, to gratify her penchant for dress, and gadded about here, 
there, and everywhere, the most showily-dressed person in the 
neighborhood. Though far from being even pretty-faced, or 
having any pretensions to a good figure, — for she both stooped 
and was skinny, — she yet believed herself handsome ; and, by a 
vulgar, flippant forwardness of demeanor, especially when in 
mixed company, extorted such attentions as persuaded her that 
others thought so. 

For one or two years she had been an occasional patient of 
mine. The settled pallor, the sallowness of her complexion, con- 
jointly with other symptoms, evidenced the existence of a liver- ^ 
complaint ; and the last visits I had paid her were in consequence 
of frequent sensations of oppression and pain in the chest, which 
clearly indicated some organic disease of the heart. I saw enough 
to warrant me in warning her mother of the possibility of her 
daughter's sudden death from this cause, and the imminent peril 
to which she exposed herself by dancing, late hours, &c. ; but 

Mrs. J 's remonstrances, gentle and affectionate as they 

always were, were thrown away upon her headstrong daughter. 

It was striking eight by the church clock when Miss J lit 

her chamber-candle by her mother's, and withdrew to her room 
to dress, — soundly rating the servant-girl by the way for not 
having starched some article or other which she intended to have 
worn that evening. As her toilet was usually a long and laborious 
business, it did not occasion much surprise to her mother — who 



WARREN. 685 

was sitting by the fire in their little parlor, reading some book of 
devotion — that the church-chimes announced the first quarter 
past nine o'clock without her daughter's making her appearance. 
The noise she had made overhead in walking to and fro to her 
drawers, dressing-table, &c. had ceased about half an hour ago, 
and her mother supposed she was then engaged at her glass, ad- 
justing her hair and preparing her complexion. 

" Well, I wonder what can make Charlotte so very careful 

about her dress to-night!" exclaimed Mrs. J , removing her 

eyes from the book and gazing thoughtfully at the fire. " Oh, it 

must be because young Lieutenant N is to be there ! Well, 

I was young myself once, and it's very excusable in Charlotte, — 
heigh-ho !" She heard the wind howling so dismally without, 
that she drew together the coals of her brisk fire, and was laying 

down the poker when the clock of church struck the second 

quarter after nine. 

"Why, what in the w^orld can Charlotte be doing all this 
while ?" she again inquired. She listened. — " I have not heard 
her moving for the last three-quarters of an hour! I'll call the 
maid and ask." She rung the bell, and the servant appeared. 

" Betty, Miss J is not gone yet, is she ?" 

" No, ma'am," replied the girl ; " I took up the curling-irons 
only about a quarter of an hour ago, as she had put one of her 
curls out; and she said she should soon be ready. She's burst 
her new muslin dress behind, and that has put her into a way, 
ma'am." 

" Go up to her room, then, Betty, and see if she wants any 

thing; and tell her it's half-past nine o'clock," said Mrs. J . 

The servant accordingly went up-stairs, and knocked at the bed- 
room-door once, twice, thrice, but received no answer. There 
was a dead silence, except when the wind shook the window. 

Could Miss J have fallen asleep ? Oh, impossible ! She 

knocked again, but unsuccessfully as before. She became a little 
flustered, and, after a moment's pause, opened the door and 

entered. There was Miss J sitting at the glass. " Why, la, 

ma'am," commenced Betty, in a petulant tone, walking up to 

her, " here have I been knocking for these five minutes, and " 

Betty staggered horror-struck to the bed, and, uttering a loud 

shriek, alarmed Mrs. J , who instantly tottered up-stairs, 

almost palsied with fright. Miss J was dead ! 

I was there within a few minutes ; for my house was not more 
than two streets distant. It was a stormy night in March ; and 
the desolate aspect of things without — deserted streets, the dreary 
howling of the wind, and the incessant pattering of the rain — ■ 
contributed to cast a gloom over my mind, when connected with 
the intelligence of the awful event that had summoned me out, 
which was deepened into horror by the spectacle I was doomed 

58 



686 WARREN. 

to witness. On reaching the house, I found Mrs. J in violent 

hysterics, surrounded by several of her neighbors, who had been 
called in to her assistance. I repaired instantly to the scene of 
death, and beheld what I shall never forget. The room was 
occupied by a white-curtained bed. There was but one window, 
and before it was a table, on which stood a looking-glass hung 
with a little white drapery ; and the various paraphernalia of 
the toilet lay scattered about, — pins, brooches, curling-papers, 
ribands, gloves, &c. An arm-chair was drawn to this table, and 

in it sat Miss J , stone dead. Her head rested upon her 

right hand, her elbow supported by the table ; while her left 
hung down by her side, grasping a pair of curling-irons. Each 
of her wrists was encircled by a showy gilt bracelet. She was 
dressed in a white muslin frock, with a little bordering of blonde. 
Her face was turned towards the glass, which, by the light of the 
expiring candle, reflected, with frightful fidelity, the clammy 
fixed features, daubed over with rouge and carmine, — the fallen 
lower jaw, and the eyes directed full into the glass with a cold, 
dull stare that was appalling. On examining the countenance 
more narrowly, I thought I detected the traces of a smirk of con- 
ceit and self-complacency, which not even the palsying touch of 
death could wholly obliterate. The hair of the corpse, all smooth 
and glossy, was curled with elaborate precision ; and the skinny, 
sallow neck was encircled with a string of glistening pearls. The 
ghastly visage of death thus leering through the tinselry of fashion 
— " the vain show" of artificial joy — was a horrible mockery of 
the fooleries of life ! 

Indeed, it was a most humiliating and shocking spectacle. 
Poor creature ! struck dead in the very act of sacrificing at the 
shrine of female vanity ! She must have been dead lor some 
time — perhaps for twenty minutes or half an hour — when I 
arrived ; for nearly all the animal heat had deserted the body, 
which was rapidly stiffening. I attempted, but in vain, to draw 
a little blood from the arm. Two or three women present pro- 
ceeded to remove the corpse to the bed for the purpose of laying 
it out. What strange passiveness ! .No resistance ofiTered to them 
while straightening the bent right arm, and binding the jaws 
together with a faded white riband which Miss J had des- 
tined for her waist that evening. 

On examination of the body, we found that death had been 
occasioned by disease of the heart. Her life might have been 
protracted, possibly for years, had she but taken my advice and 
that of her mother. I have seen many hundreds of corpses, as 
well in the calm composure of natural death as mangled and dis- 
torted by violence ; but never have I seen so startling a satire 
upon human vanity, so repulsive, unsightly, and loathsome a 
spectacle, as a corpse dressed for a hall! 



TRENCH. 687 



RICHARD CBENEYIX TRENCIL D.D., 1807- 



This eminent theologian and scholar was born in Dublin in 1807, and 
graduated at Cambridge in 1829. After acting as curate in one or two places 
of minor influence, he was in 1847 appointed Professor of Theology in King's 
Collefe, London. In 1856, on The death of Dr. Buckland, he was nominated 
to the Deanery of Westminster, the duties of which he discharged with the 
highest acceptance and usefulness until the death of Archbishop Whately, 
J 864, when he was appointed to fill the place of that prelate, as Archbishop of 
Dublin. Such is a meagre outline of his outward life. 

As a literary man. Dr. Trench has been one of the most laborious and suc- 
cessful of the present century. His avowed publications number more than 
twenty, mostly upon theological subjects. His first literary essays were in 
poetry : — Sabbation; Honor Neale, and other Poems; The Story of Justin Martyr, 
1838; Genoveva; Poems from Eastern Sources; Elegiac Poems, 1839-40; and, 
more recently, Sacred Poetry for Mourners. His chief theological writings 
are — Notes on the Miracles; Notes on the Parables; The Sermon on the Mount, 
illustrated from St. Augustine ; Synonyms of the New Testament ; Commentary on 
the Epistles to the Seven Churches, &c. But it is in the department of philology, 
perhaps, that he has most excelled, as it is certainly that by which he is best 
known ; for his Essay on the Study of Words and Lessons in Proverbs are golden 
treatises, which have had, most deservedly, a wide circulation. His English 
Past and Present, Select Glossary of English Words, and On Some Deficiencies in 
our English Dictionaries, are also valuable works of their kind. But his 
writings need no eulogistic remarks: few are more tlK»ughtful, suggestive, 
purifying, ennobling; as the following brief extracts conclusively show: — 

EARTH A PILGRIMAGE. 

To feel that we are homeless exiles here ; 

To listen to the world's discordant tone, 

As to a private discord of our own ; 
To know that we are fallen from a sphere 
Of higher being, pure, serene, and clear, 

Into the darkness of this dim estate, — 

This thought may sometimes make us desolate, 
For this we may shed many a secret tear. 

But to mistake our dungeon for a throne, 

Our place of exile for our native land ; 

To hear no discords in the universe, 
To find no matter over which to groan, — 

This, (oh that men would rightly understand !) 

This, seeming better, were indeed far worse. 



"THE PATH OF THE JUST." 

Weary deserts we may tread, 
A dreary labyrinth may thread, 
Through dark ways under ground be led; 



688 TRENCH. 

Yet, if we will one Guide obey, 
The dreariest path, the darkest way, 
Shall issue out in heavenly day, 

And we, on divers shores now cast, 
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, 
Safe in our Father's House at lasi. 



REPINING— THANKSGIVING. 

Some murmur, when their sky is clear 

And wholly bright to view, 
If one small speck of dark appear 

In their great heaven of blue ; 
And some with thankful love are fiU'd 

If but one streak of light. 
One ray of God's good mercy, gild 

The darkness of their night. 

In palaces are hearts that ask, 

In discontent and pride, 
Why life is such a dreary task, 

And all good things denied ; 
And hearts in poorest huts admire 

How love has in their aid 
(Love that not ever seems to tire) 

Such rich provision made. 



• PR A YEB. 

Lord, what a change within us one sliort hour 
Spent in Thy ]^.resence will prevail to make, 

/ What heavy burdens from our bosoms take. 

What parched ground refresh, as with a shower! 

AVe kneel, and all around us seems to lower; 
We rise, and all — the distant and the near — 
Stands forth in suimy outline brave and clear ; 

We kneel, how weak! — we rise, how full of power! 
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong. 
Or otliers, — that we are not always strong ; 

That we are ever overborne with care ; 
That we should ever weak or heartless be, 

Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, 

And Joy, and Strength, and Courage, is with Thee ? 

SELF-LOATHING. 

Lord, many times I am aweary quite 

Of mine own self, my sin, my vanity; 
Yet be not Thou, or I am lost outright. 
Weary of me. 

And hate against myself I often bear, 

And enter with myself in fierce debate ; 
Take Thou my part against myself, nor share 
In that just hate! 



■\ 



TBENCIL 

Best friends might loathe us, if Avhat things perverse 

We know of our own selves, they also knew ; 
Lord, Holy One ! if Thou, who knowest worse, 
Shouldst loathe us too ! 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 

How often in our daily life, in the social intercourse which we 
hold with our fellow-men, if we will not bear witness for Christ 
on the moment, we cannot do so at all ! If we will not throw 
ourselves into the gap at the instant, then, while we are delibe- 
rating, while we are mustering our tardy forces, the gap is closed, 
and it becomes impossible for us to do at all what we would not 
do at once. The stream of conversation flows on, and cannot be 
brought back to the point where it then was. The pernicious 
maxim was left unreproved, the word dishonorable to God, or 
injurious to His servants, to His truth, was suffered to pass by 
unrebuked : and it must continue so now ; for that word which 
we would not speak at once, we cannot now speak at all. We 
may sleep on and take our rest ; for the time when we might 
have served God and the cause of His truth, in this matter, is 
past. 

THE BEST INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 

What an interpreter of Scripture is affliction ! How many 
stars in its heaven shine out brightly in the night of sorrow 
and pain, which were unperceived or overlooked in the garish 
day of our prosperity ! What an enlarger of Scripture is any 
other outer or inner event which stirs the depths of our hearts, 
which touches us near to the core and centre of our lives ! 

Trouble of spirit, condemnation of conscience, sudden danger, 
strong temptation, — when any of these overtake us, what veils do 
they take away, that we may see what hitherto we saw not, — 
what new domains of God's word do they bring within our 
spiritual ken ! How do promises which once fell flat upon our 
ears become precious now, — psalms become our own * * * 
which before were aloof from us! How do we see things now 
with the eye which before we knew only by the hearing of the 
ear, — which before men had told us, but now we ourselves have 
found ! So that on these accounts, also, the Scripture is fitted to 
be our companion, and to do us good all the years of our life. 

THE POWER OF A WORD —''TRIBULATION." 

" Iliads without a Homer," some one has called, with a little 
exaggeration, the beautiful but anonymous ballad poetry of 
Spain. One may be permitted, perhaps, to push the exaggera- 
tion a little further in the same direction, and to apply the 

58* 



690 TRENCH. 

phrase not merely to a ballad, but to a word. Let me illustrate 
that which I have been here saying somewhat more at length by 
the word " tribulation.'' We all know in a general way that this 
word, which occurs not seldom in Scripture and in the liturgy, 
means affliction, sorrow, anguish ; but it is quite worth our while 
to know liow it means this, and to question the word a little 
closer. It is derived from the Latin tribulum, — which was the 
thrashing instrument or roller whereby the Roman husbandman 
separated the corn from the husks ; and tribulatio, in its primary 
significance, was the act of this separation. But some Latin 
writer of the Christian church appropriated the word and image 
for the setting forth of a higher truth ; and sorrow, distress, and 
adversity being the appointed means for the separating in men 
of their chaff from their wheat, — of whatever in them Avas light 
and trivial and poor from the solid and the true, — therefore he 
called these sorrows and griefs " tribulations," — thrashings, that 
is, of the inner spiritual man, without which there could be no 
fitting him for the heavenly garner. Now, in proof of what I 
have just now said, — namely, that a single word is often a con- 
centrated poem, a little grain of gold capable of being beaten out 
into a broad extent of gold-leaf^ — I will quote, in reference to 
this very word " tribulation," a graceful composition by an early 
English poet, which you will at once perceive is all wrapped up 
in this word, being from first to last only the expanding of the 
image and thought which this word has implicitly given : — 

'' Till from the straw, the flail the corn doth beat, 
Until the chaff be purged from the wheat, 
Yea, till the mill the grains in pieces tear, 
The richness of the flour will scarce appear. 
So, till men's persons great afflictions touch, 
If worth be found, their worth is not so much. 
Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet 
That value which in thrashing they may get. 
For, till the bruising flails of God's corrections 
Have thrashed out of us our vain affections ; 
Till those corruptions which do misbecome us 
Are by thy sacred Spirit winnow'd from us ; 
Until from us the straw of worldly treasures. 
Till all the dusty chaff of empty pleasures, 
Yea, till His flail upon us He doth lay, 
To thrash the husk of this our flesh away. 
And leave the soul uncover'd ; nay, yet more, 
Till God shall make our very spirit poor. 
We shall not up to highest wealth aspire ; 
But then we shall ; and that is my desire." 
/ 

This deeper religious use of the word "tribulation" was un- 
known to classical — that is, to heathen — antiquity, and belongs 
exclusively to the Christian writers ; and the fact that the same 
deepening and elevating of the use of words recurs in a multitude 



TRENCH. 691 

of other, and many of them far more striking, instances, is one 
well deserving to be followed up. Nothing, I think, would more 
strongly bring before us what a new power Christianity was in 
the world, than to compare the meaning which so many words 
possessed before its rise, and the deeper meaning which they ob- 
tained so soon as they were assumed by it as the vehicles of its 
life, — the new thought and feeling enlarging, purifying, and en- 
nobling the very words which they employed. 

THE BEAUTY AND FORCE OF PROVERBS. 

What warnings do many proverbs contain against unreason- 
able expectations, — against a looking for perfection in a w'orld 
of imperfection, and, generally, a demanding of more from life 
than life can yield ! We note very well the folly of one addicted 
to this, saying, He expects better bread than can be made of wheat; 
and the Portuguese, He that will have a horse without fault, let 
him go afoot. Again, what a good word of caution, in respect of 
the wisdom of considering oftentimes a step which, being once 
taken, is taken forever, lies in the following Russian proverb : — 
Measure thy cloth ten times; thou canst cut it but once. And in this 
Spanish the final issues of procrastination are well set forth : — 
By the street of " By-and-by" one arrives at the house of " Never.'' 
And here is a word which we owe to Italy, and which, laid to 
heart, might keep men out of lawsuits, or, being in them, from 
refusing to accept tolerable terms of accommodation : — The robes 
of lawyers are lined with the obstinacy of suitors. Other words 
of wisdom and warning — for so I must esteem them — are these : — 
this, on the danger of being overset by prosperity, — Every thing 
may be borne, except good fortune; or of forgetting its author, — In 
prosperity no altars smoke: this, on the disgrace which will sooner 
or later follow upon dressing ourselves out in intellectual finery 
that does not belong to us, — Who arrays himself in other men's 
garments, they strip him in the middle of the street: he is detected 
and laid bare when and where detection is most shameful. And 
here is a German proverb on the importance of knowing one 
thing well, rather than many things ill : — The master of one trade 
will support a wife and seven children; the master of seven will 
not support himself. 

Of the same miscellaneous character, and derived from quar- 
ters the most diverse, but all of them of an excellent sense or 
shrewdness, are the following. This is from Italy, — Who sees not 
the bottom, let him not pass tlie water. This is current among the 
free blacks of Hayti, — Before crossing the river, do 7iot curse the 
crocodile's mother; that is, provoke not Avantonly those in whose 
power you presently may be. This is Spanish, — Call me not 
^' olive" till you see me gathered; being nearly parallel to our 



692 BONAR. 

own, — Praise a fair day at night; and this French, — Tahe the first 
advice of a woman, arid not the second, — a proverb of much wis- 
dom; for in processes of reasoning, out of which the second 
counsels would spring, women may and will be inferior to us ; but 
in intuitions — moral ones above all — they surpass us far. * * * 

As to the choice of books, let me put before you a proverb, 
and, in this reading age, a very serious one : it comes to us from 
Italy, and it says. There is no worse robber than a bad book. In- 
deed, none w^orse, nor so bad ; other robbers may spoil us of our 
money, but this one of our " goods," — of our time, at any rate, 
even assuming the book to be only negatively bad ; but of how 
much more of our principles, our faith, our purity of heart, sup- 
posing its badness to be positive, and not negative only ! 

Here are one or two prudent words on education : — A child 
may have too much of its mother s blessing. Yes ; for that blessing 
may be no blessing, but rather a curse, if it take the shape of 
foolish and fond indulgence. And in the same strain is this Ger- 
man : — Better the child iveep than the father. And this, like many 
others, is found in so many tongues that it cannot be ascribed to 
one rather than another: — There is more in the garden than the 
gardener ever sowed. It is a proverb for many, but most of all 
for parents and teachers, that they lap not themselves in a false 
dream of security, as though nothing was at work or growing in 
the minds of the young in their guardianship but what they 
themselves had sown there, — as though there was not another 
who might very well have sown his tares beside and among any 
good seed of their sowing. At the same time, the proverb has 
also its happier side. There may be, there often are, better 
things also in this garden than ever the earthly gardener set 
there, — seeds of the more immediate sowing of God. In either 
of its aspects, this proverb is one deserving to be laid to heart. 



HORATIUS BONAR, 180S- 



HoRATius BoNAR, D.D., was born in Edinburgh, in 1808, and educated at the 
iTniversity in that city. He studied for the ministry, and was ordained at 
Kelso in 1837, entering earnestly upon his Master's work and pursuing it un- 
remittingly. His KcUo Tracts, which he began in 1839, had a very wide circu- 
lation; of one of which, entitled Believe and Live, 750,000 copies were sold. 
When in 1843 the Free Church of Scotland released itself in easting off the 
thraldom of the State, Horatius Bonar's name was appended to the Declaration 
of that glorious band of seceders. The first series of his Hymns of Faith and 
Hope, containing one hundred and fifteen hymns, appeared in 1856; the 
Second Series, containing a few more, in 1861. As a sacred lyric poet, he has 
not his superior in this century ; and many collections of sacred song published 



BONAR. 693 

within a few years have been enriched by hymns from his volumes. Such 
hymns as that beginning, — 

" 1 lay ray sins on Jesus ;" 
and that, — 

" Thy way, not mine, Lord ;" — 

will live as long as the language. 

The following piece, taken from his second volume, is so just and timely a 
reprehension of much that is called poetry of the present day, that I deem it 
worthy of a place in this volume. 



THE TWO PROPHETS. 

Wrap thyself up in night ; speak low, not loud ; 

Spread shining mist along a solemn page ; 
Be like a voice, half heard from hollow cloud, 

And thou slialt be the prophet of the age. 

Conceal thy thought in words ; or, better still, 
Conceal thy ivant of thought ; and thou shalt be 

Poet and prophet, sage and oracle, 
A thing of wonder, worship, mystery. 

Coin some new mystic dialect and style, 
Pile up thy broken rainbows page on page. 

With dim dissolving views the eye beguile, 
And thou shalt be the poet of the age. 

Old bards and thinkers could their wisdom tell. 
In words of light which all might understand ; 

They had great things to say, and said them well, 
To far-off ages of their listening land. 

Such was old Milton, such was Bacon wise, 
Such all the greatly good and nobly true ; 

High thoughts were theirs, kin to the boundless skies, 
But words translucent as the twilight dew. 

Be ever like earth's greatest, truest, soundest, 
Be like the prophets of the prophet-lanji ; 

Be like the Master, — simplest when profoundest ; 
Speak that thy fellow-men may understand. 

Old streams of earth, sing on in happy choir ! 

Old sea, roll on your bright waves to the shore ; 
Tune, ancient wind, tune your still cunning lyre. 

And sing the simple song you sung of yore ! 

Dear arch of heaven, pure veil of lucid blue', 
Star-loving hills, immovable and calm. 

Fresh fields of earth and undefiled dew. 
Chant, as in ages past, your glorious psalm. 

I love the ringing of your child-like notes. 
The music of your warm transparent song ; 

And my heart throbs, as blithely o'er me floats 
Your endless echo, sweet and glad and young. 



694 CAROLINE K S. NORTON. 

Your old is ever new ; perpetual youth 
Sits on your brow, a God-given heritage : 

Even thus, in her fair ever-green, old Truth 
Stands, without waste or weariness or age. 

Unchanged in her clear speech and simple song, 
Earth utters its old wisdom all around ; 

Ours be, like hers, a voice distinct and strong, 
Speech as unmuffled, wisdom as profound. 

All mystery is defect ; and cloudy words 

Are feebleness, not strength ; are loss, not gain ; 

Men win no victories with spectre swords ; 

The phantom barque ploughs the broad sea in vain. 

If thou hast aught to say, or small or great. 
Speak with a clear true voice; all mysteries 

Are but man's poor attempts to imitate 
The hidden wisdom of the Only Wise. 

The day of Delphic oracles is past; 

All mimic wisdom is a broken reed ; 
The gorgeous mountain-mist rolls up at last, 

Clouds quench no thirst, and flowers no hunger feed. 



3IRJS. NORTON, 1808- 



Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan, the granddaughter of Eichard Brins- 
ley Sheridan, early showed that she inherited the genius of her celebrated 
ancestor, and in her seventeenth year composed her poem, The Sorrows of 
Rosalie. " Bereaved by death," as it has been said, " of one to whom she had 
given her heart, she became, in an unpropitious hour, the wife of the Hon. 
George Chappel Norton." The union proved a most unhappy one, and was 
dissolved in 1840, Mrs. Norton having been for many years the object of sus- 
picion and persecution of the most mortifying and painful character. That 
her husband's treatment of her was unjustifiable, no one acquainted with the 
history of this unfortunate union for a moment doubts; but that in such cases 
the fault is all on one side, the world rarely, if ever, believes. It is certainly 
much in Mrs. Norton's favor that she has not forfeited the confidence of her 
most intimate friends, and that in the darkest hour of her persecution she 
enjoyed the esteem of some of the first personages in England. 

Mrs. Norton's next work was a poem founded on the ancient legend of the 
" Wandering Jew," which she termed The Undying One. A third volume ap- 
peared from her pen in 1840, entitled The Dream, and other Poems. These have 
given her a very high rank among the female poets of England. The Quarterly 
JReview says that "she is the Byron of our modern poetesses. She has very 
much of that intense personal passion by which Byron's poetry is distin- 
guished from the larger grasp and deeper communion with man and nature 
•of Wordsworth. She has also Byron's beautiful intervals of tenderness, his 
strong practical thought, and his forceful expression. It is not an artificial 
imitation, but a natural parallel." For the honor of the sex, I hope the 
"natural parallel" cannot be carried any further. Indeed, it cannot; for, in 



CAROLINE E. S. NORTON. 695 

marked contrast to some of Byron's poetry, the moral tone of all that Mrs. Nor- 
ton has written is pure and elevated. Her poetic powers, naturally of a high 
order, have been greatly cherished and improved by education and culture, 
and by a careful study of the best models. 

The following beautiful verses are addressed by Mrs. Norton to her to whom 
she has dedicated her poems :— 



TO THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND. 

Once more, my harp ! once more, although I thought 

Never to wake thy silent strings again ; 
A wandering dream tliy gentle chords have wrought, 

And my sad heart, which long hath dwelt in pain, 
Soars like a wild bird from a cypress bongli 
Into the poet's heaven, and leaves dull grief below ! 

And unto thee — the beautiful and pure — 

Whose lot is cast amid that busy world 
Where only sluggish Dulness dwells secure, 

And Fancy's generous wing is faintly furl'd ; 
To thee — whose friendship kept its equal truth 
Through the most dreary hour of my imbitter'd youth — 

I dedicate the lay. Ah ! never bard. 

In days when poverty was twin with song, 
Nor wandering harper, lonely and ill-starr'd, 

Cheer'd by some castle's chief, and harbor'd long ; 
Not Scott's " Last Minstrel," in his trembling lays, 
Woke with a warmer heart the earnest meed of praise : 

For easy are the alms the rich man spares 

To sons of Genius, by misfortune bent ; 
But thou gav'st me, what woman seldom dares, 

Belief — in spite of many a cold dissent — 
W^hen, slandePd and malign'd, I stood apart 
From those whose bounded power hath wrung, not crush' d, my heart. 

Thou, then, when cowards lied away my name, 

And scoff' d to see me feebly stem the tide ; 
When some were kind on whom I had no claim. 

And some forsook on whom my love relied. 
And some, who might have battled for my sake. 
Stood off in doubt to see what turn the world would take, — 

Thou gav'st me that the poor do give the poor, 

Kind words, and holy wishes, and true tears ; 
The loved, the near of kin could do no more ; 

Who changed not with the gloom of varying years, 
But clung the closer when I stood forlorn, 
And blunted Slander's dart with their indignant scorn. 

For they who credit crime are they who feel 

Their own hearts weak to unresisted sin ; 
Memory, not judgment, prompts the thoughts which steal 

O'er minds like these, an easy faith to win ; 
And tales of broken truth are still believed 
Most readily by those who have themselves deceived. 



696 CAROLINE E. S. NORTON. 

But like a white swan down a troubled stream, 
Whose rufliing pinion hath the power to fling 

Aside the turbid drops which darkly gleam 
And mar the freshness of her snowy wing, — 

So thou, with queenly grace and gentle pride, 

Along the world's dark waves in purity dost glide : 

Thy pale and pearly cheek was never made 
To crimson with a faint false-hearted shame ; 

Thou didst not shrink, — of bitter tongues afraid, 
Who hunt in packs the object of their blame; 

To thee the sad denial still held true, 

For from thine own good thoughts thy heart its mercy drew. 

And though my faint and tributary rhymes 

Add nothing to the glory of thy day, 
Yet every poet hopes that after-times 

Shall set some value on his votive lay; 
And I would fain one gentle deed record, 
Among the many such with which thy life is stored. 

So when these lines, made in a mournful hour, 

Are idly open'd to the stranger's eye, 
A dream of thee, aroused by Fancy's power. 

Shall be the first to wander floating by ; . 
And they who never saw thy lovely face 
Shall pause, to conjure up a vision of its grace ! 



SONNET,— TO MY BOOKS. 

Silent companions of the lonely hour. 

Friends who can never alter or forsake, 
Who for inconstant roving have no power. 

And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take, — 
Let me return to YOU ; this turmoil ending 

Which worldly cares have in my spirit wrought, 
And, o'er your old familiar pages bending, 

Refresh my mind with many a tranquil thought, 
Till haply meeting there, from time to time. 

Fancies, the audible echo of my own, 
'Twill be like hearing in a foreign clime 

My native language spoke in friendly tone. 
And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell 
On these, my unripe musings, told so well. 



SONNET,— THE WEAVER. 

Little they think, the giddy and the vain. 

Wandering at pleasure 'neath the shady trees, 
While the light glossy silk or rustling train 

Shines in the sun or flutters in the breeze. 
How the sick weaver plies the incessant loom, 

Crossing in silence the perplexing thread. 
Pent in the confines of one narrow room, 

Where droops complainingly his cheerless head ; 



CAROLINE E. S. NORTON. 697 

Little they think with what dull anxious eyes, 

Nor by what nerveless, thin, and trembling hands, 

The devious mingling of those various dyes 
Were wrought to answer Luxury's commands : 

Bat the day cometh when tlie tired shall rest, — 
Where weary Lazarus leans his head on Abraham's breast ! 

COMMON BLESSINGS. 

Those "common blessings" ! In this checker'd scene 

How little thanksgiving ascends to God ! 
^ it, in truth, a privilege so mean 

■ To wander with free footsteps o'er the sod. 
See various blossoms paint the valley clod, 
And all things into teeming beauty burst ? 

A miracle as great as Aaron's rod, 
But that our senses, into dulness nurst, 
Kecurring Custom still with Apathy hath curst. 

They who have rarest joy, know Joy's true measure ; 

They who must suffer value Suffering's pause ; 
They who but seldom taste the simplest pleasure, 

Kneel oftenest to the Giver and the Cause. 

Heavy the curtains feasting Luxury draws. 
To hide the sunset and the silver night ; 

While humbler hearts, when care no longer gnaws. 
And some rare holiday permits delight, 
Lingering, with love would watch that earth-enchanting sight. 

HOPE, DESPAIR. 

Is then Despair the end of all our woe ? 
Far off the angel voices answer, No ! 
Devils despair, for they believe and tremble ; 
But man believes and hopes. Our griefs resemble 
Each other but in this : — Grief comes from heaven ; 
Each thinks his own the bitterest trial given ; 
Each wonders at the sorrows of his lot, 
His neighbor's sufferings presently forgot, 
Though wide the difference which our eyes can see 
Not only in grief's kind, but its degree. 
God grants to some all joys for their possession ; 
Nor loss, nor cross, the favor'd mortal mourns ; 
While some toil on, outside those bounds of blessing, 
Whose weary feet forever tread on thorns. 
But over all our tears God's rainbow bends ; 
To all our cries a pitying ear He lends ; 
Yea, to the feeble sound of man's lament. 
How often have His messengers been sent ! 
No barren glory circles round His throne. 
By mercies' errands were His angels known : 
Where hearts were heavy, and where eyes were dim. 
There did the brightness radiate from Him. 
God's pity, clothed in an apparent form, 
Starr'd with a polar light the human storm. 
Floated o'er tossing seas man's sinking bark, 
And for all dangers built one sheltering ark. 
59 



698 



MILNES. 



RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, 1809- 



RiCHARD MoNCKTON MiLNES, now Lord Houghton, was born in Yorkshire, in 
the year 1809. After graduating at Cambridge, he travelled for some time on 
the Continent, and, on his return to England, was elected a member of Parlia- 
ment for the borough of Pontefract, which he represented for many years.i 
His poetical works consist of — Poems, Legendary and Historical ; Poems of Mavy 
Years; Memorials of Many Scenes ; Memorials of a Tour in Greece: Poetry for the 
People; and Palm Leaves (1844). The last of these was written during a tour 
through Egypt and the Levant, and is "an attempt to introduce wthe people 
of England the manners of thought and the habits of the East." A volume of 
Selections from his Poetical Works was published by Murray in 1863. 

As a poet, Mr. Milnes possesses very considerable elegance and taste: about 
all his productions there is an artist-like finish, and his ear is finely attuned 
to the melodies of verse. 

YOUTH AND MANHOOD. 

Youth, that pursnest with such eager pace 

Thy even way, 
Thou pantest on to win a mournful race ; 

Then stay ! oh, stay ! 

Pause and luxuriate in thy sunny plain ; 

Loiter, — enjoy : 
Once past, thou never wilt come back again 

A second boy. 

The hills of manhood wear a noble face 

When seen from far : 
The mist of light from which they take their grace 

Hides what they are. 

The dark and weary path those cliffs between 

Thou canst not know, 
And how it leads to regions never-green, 

Dead fields of snow. 

Pause, while thou mayst, nor deem that fate thy gain, 

Which, all too fast, 
Will drive thee forth from this delicious plain, 

A man at last ! 



1 Pontefract is a town in Yorkshire where 
the old Roman road crossed the Aire. The 
name {ad Pcmtem Fractum, "to the Broken 
Bridge") tells us that the Roman bridge must 
have remained unrepaired long enough, for 
the name "Broken Bridge" to become fixed. 
Milnes's predecessor from this place was the 
celebrated John Gully, who had been a noto- 
rious prize-fighter and a notability on "the 
turf," and who sat as M.P. for Pontefract for 
a number of years. Heuce the witty epigram 
of Horace Smith, — 



"Strange is it proud Pontefract's borough 
should sully 
Its fame by returning to Parliament Gully; 
The etymological cause, I suppose, is 
His breaking the bridges of so many noses." 

So that England cannot consistently throw 
stones at us for our having in our Congress, 
occasionally, — as we must acknowledge we 
have, — a very unworthy member. 



MILNES. 699 

LABOR. 

Heart of the People I Working men ! 

Marrow and nerve of human powers ; 
Who on your sturdy backs sustain 

Through streaming time this world of ours ; 
Hold by that title, — which proclaims 

That ye are undismay'd and strong, 
Accomplishing whatever aims 

May to the sons of earth belong. 

Yet not on ye alone depend 

These offices, or burdens fall ; 
Labor, for some or other end, 

Is lord and master of us all. 
The high-born youth from downy bed 

Must meet the morn with horse and hound, 
While industry for daily bread 

Pursues afresh his Avonted round. 

With all his pomp of pleasure, he 

Is but your working comrade now, 
And shouts and winds his horn, as ye 

Might whistle by the loom or plough ; 
In vain for him has wealth the use 

Of warm repose and careless joy, — 
When, as ye labor to produce. 

He strives, as active, to destroy. 

But who is this, with wasted frame, 

Sad sign of vigor overwrought ? 
What toil can this new victim claim ? 

Pleasure, for pleasure's sake besought. 
How men would mock her flaunting shows, 

Her golden promise, if they knew 
What weary work she is to those 

Who have no better work to do ! 

And he who still and silent sits 

In closed room or shady nook, 
And seems to nurse his idle wits 

With folded arms or open book, — 
To things now working in that mind 

Your children's children well may owe 
Blessings that hope has ne'er defined, 

Till from his busy thoughts they flow. 

Thus all must work : with head or hand, 

For self or others, good or ill ; 
Life is ordain'd to bear, like land. 

Some fruit, be fallow as it will : 
Evil has force itself to sow 

Where we deny the healthy seed ; 
And all our choice is this, — to grow 

Pasture and grain, or noisome weed. 

Then in content possess your hearts, 

Unenvious of each other's lot ; 
For those which seem the easiest parts 

Have travail which ye reckon not : 



700 MILNES. 



And he is bravest, happiest, best, 
Who, from the task within his span, 

Earns for himself his evening rest, 
And an increase of good for man. 



EICH AND POOR. 

When God built np the dome of blue, 

And portion'd earth's prolific floor, 
The measure of his wisdom drew 

A line between the rich and poor ; 
And till that vault of glory fall, 

Or beauteous earth be scarr'd with flame, 
Or saving love be all in all. 

That rule of life will rest the same. 

We know not why, we know not how 

Mankind are framed for weal or woe, — 
But to the eternal law we bow ; 

If such things are, they must be so. 
Yet, let no cloudy dreams destroy 

One truth outshining bright and clear. 
That wealth is only hope and joy, 

And poverty but pain and fear. 

Behold our children as they play ! 

Blest creatures, fresh from nature's hand ; 
The peasant boy as great and gay 

As the young heir to gold and land; 
Their various toys of equal woi'th, 

Their little needs of equal care, 
And halls of marble, huts of earth. 

All homes alike endear'd and fair. 

They know no better ! would that we 

Could keep our knowledge safe from worse; 
So power should find and leave us free, 

So pride be but the owner's curse ; 
So, without marking which was which. 

Our hearts would tell, by instinct sure. 
What paupers are the ambitious rich ! 

How wealthy the contented poor ! 

Grant us, O God, but health and heart. 

And strength to keep desire at bay. 
And ours must be the better part, 

Whatever else besets our way. 
Each day may bring sufiicient ill ; 

But we can meet and fight it through. 
If hope sustains the hand of will, 

And conscience is our captain too, 

THE BROOK-SIDE. 



I wander'd by the brook-side, 
I wander'd by the mill, — 

I could not hear the brook flow, 
The noisy wheel was still ; 



There was no burr of grasshopper, 

Nor chirp of any bird ; 
But the beating of my own heart 

Was all the sound 1 heard. 



TENNYSON. 



701 



I pat beneath the elm-tree, 

1 watoh'd the long, long shade, 
And as it grew still longer, 

I did not feel afraid ; 
For I listen' d for a footfall, 

I listen'd for a word. — 
But tlie beating of my own heart 

Was all the sound I heard. 

He came not, — no, he came not, — 
The night came on alone, — 

The little stars sat, one by one, 
Each on his golden throne ; 



The evening air pass'd by my cheek, 
The leaves above were stirr'd, — 

But the beating of my own heart 
Was all the sound I heard. 

Fast silent tears were flowing, 

When something stood behind, — 
A hand was on my shoulder, 

I knew its touch was kind : 
It drew me nearer, — nearer, — 

We did not speak one word, 
For the beating of our own hearts 

Was all the sound we heard. 



THE WORTH OF HO UBS. 

Believe not that your inner eye 

Can ever in just measure try 

The worth of hours as they go by ; 

For every man's weak self, alas ! 
Makes him to see them while they pass 
As through a dim or tinted glass ; 

But if in earnest care you would 
Mete out to each its part of good, 
Trust rather to your after-mood. 

Those surely are not fairly spent, 
That leave your spirit bow'd and bent 
In sad unrest, and ill content. 

* * * * * 

So should we live, that every hour 
May die, as dies the natural flower, — 
A self-reviving thing of power ; 

That every thought and every deed 
May hold within itself the seed 
Of future good, and future meed ; 

Esteeming sorrow, whose employ 
Is to develop, not destroy. 
Far better than a barren joy. 



ALFRED TENNYSON, 1809- 



Alfreb Tennyson, the present poet-laureate of England, is the son of Rev. 
G. C. Tennyson, a rector in Somersly, Lincolnshire, and was born in 1809. He 
went through the usual routine of a university education at Trinity College, 
Cambridge, and since then has lived a life of retirement.^ There is nothing 
particularly eventful in his biography ; and beyond a very small circle, it is 
said, he is seldom seen. In 1830 he first appeared as an author, by publishing 



^ He lives in rather a recluse manner, in I plained how much he is annoyed by impertir 
the Isle of Wight, and has lately (1865) com- | nent intruders. 

69* 



702 



TENNYSOX. 



Poems, chiefly Lyrical, which was succeeded by a second volume, three years 
afterwards, containing The May Queen, The Miller's Daughter, The Lotos- 
Eaters, &c. In 1843 appeared Foems, in two volumes, including many of his 
former productions, considerably altered, with the addition of many new ones.^ 
In 1847 appeared The Princess, a Medley, — the largest and most ambitious of 
his works :2 and in 1850, In Memoriam.^ In 1852 he published his Ode on the 
Death of the Duke of Wellington ; in 1855, Maud, artd other Poems; in 1856, Dora, 
a Poem; in 1859, Idyls of the King; and, more recently, Enoch Arden, &c.'^ 
A few years after he was created poet-laureate, the University of Oxford con- 
ferred upon him the degree of D.C.L. Such are the brief outlines of his lite- 
rary life. 

As a poet, Tennyson, like Wordsworth, has divided the critics; and here, as 
in most cases, the whole truth is not to be found in either extreme. While 
most of his minor pieces, and here and there a gem in his larger productions, 
are truly beautiful in diction, melody, and sentiment,^ — taking a strong hold 
upon the heart, and imparting lessons of wisdom and virtue of priceless value, 
— it must be acknowledged that some of what he has written is misty, obscure, 
and enigmatical.^ It often requires no little labored thought, reading and re- 
reading, to see the writer's meaning; and, after all, you are not perfectly satis- 
fied that you are right. Now, can such poetry become generally popular? 
Will it abide its century?'^ The purposes of poetry are — first, to delight, and, 
second, to instruct; and how can any one be either pleased or profited by what 
is not clearly and easily intelligible?^ 



1 The new pieces were — Lady Clara Vere de 
Vere, Mnrte d' Arthur, Lockshy Hall, Godiva, 
The Lord nf Burleigh, &c. 

2 The sui)ject of The Pnncess relates to a 
certain philosophical princess, who founded a 
college of women, to be educated in high con- 
tempt for the male sex. This royal champion 
of " women's rights" has been betrothed to a 
neighboring prince; and the poet, assuming 
the character of this prince, narrates the tale. 
" As a poem," says Mr. Moir, " its beauties 
and faults are so inextricably Interwoven, and 
the latter are so glaring and many, that, as a 
sincere admirer of the genius of Tennyson, I 
could almost wish it had remained unwritten. 
I admit the excellence of particular passages; 
bnt it has neither general harmony of design 
nor sustained merit of execution." 

3 This is a tribute to his departed friend, 
Arthur H. Hallam, a son of the celebrated 
historian, to whom he was bound by many 
endearing ties, and who was on the point of 
marrying the poet's sister, when he sickened 
and died. It was about the time of the pub- 
lication of the In Memoriam that Tennyson, 
on the death of Wordsworth, was named poet- 
laureate, the small emoluments of which 
office he still enjoys, together with a separate 
pension of £200. 

4 Read notices of Tennyson's works in Gentle- 
man's Magazine, February, 1848 ; North British 
Review, ix. 4-3, and xiii. 473 ; Edinburgh, Ixxvii. 
.373; and London Quarterly. \xx. Z8b; also in 
Bayne's Essays, and in Brimley's Essays. 

6 " Tenny.son's diction and melody are in 
perfect harmony with his imagiijative faculty. 
To describe his command of language by any 
ordinary terms, expressive of fluency or force, 
would be to convey an idea both inadequate 
aud erroneous. It is not only that he knows 



every word in the language suited to express 
his every idea: he can select with the ease of 
magic the word that of all others is best for 
his purpose. Nor is it tliat he can at once 
summon to his aid the best word the language 
affords: with an art which Shakspeare never 
scrupled to apply, though in our day it is apt 
to be counted mere Germanism and pro- 
nounced contrary to the genius of the lan- 
guage, he combines old words into new epi- 
thets; he daringly mingles old colors to bring 
out new tints that never were on sea or shore. 
His words gleam like pearls and opals, like 
rubies and emeralds." — Bayne. 

6 Some of his critics are to me as enigmatical 
as the poet himself. For instance, the author 
of the Illustrious Personages of the Nineteenth 
Century says, in his praise (I presume), " He 
can gather up his strength like a serpent, in 
the gleaming coil of a line, or dart it ont 
straight and free." I candidly confess I know 
not what this means, as applied to poetry. 

7 Mr. Bayne again says, '" Such a poet cannot 
soon be popular with the million ; bnt as tlie 
last and most exquisite culture of educated 
minds, as the ultimate sublimation of thought 
and beautj', as the most refined expression of 
the most refined civilization that ever dawned 
upon the world, his works must continue to 
exercise a mighty influence upon the leading 
intellects of those nations which lead the 
world. ' — Essays in Criticism, First Series. 

8 " It would be as just to call stones and 
mortar, slates and timbei', a mansion, or to 
call colors and canvas a picture, a.'s to call' 
mystical effervescences poetry. Poems are 
poetical materials artistically elaborated: and, 
if so, the productions of this school, from Emer- 
son tp Browning, cannot be allowed to rank 
higher t^an rh&psodical effusions." — Moir. 



TENNYSOX. 703 

But, while our convictions of the truth compel us to write thus of some of 
Tennyson's poetry, we rejoice to add that every thing he has written is on the 
side of purity and Christian truth; that it tends to elevate, refine, and im- 
prove; that it is as full of nobleness as it is of beauty; and that, moreover, the 
author himself, by his private worth and virtues, has endeared himself to the 
hearts of his countrymen, and, indeed, to all who know of him, in a degree 
that has been rarely equalled in the history of literature. 



NEW-VEAE'S EVE. 

If you're waking call me early, call me early, mother dear, 

For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year. 

It is the last New-year that I shall ever see, 

Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more of me. 

To-night I saw the sun set : he set and left behind 
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind ; 
And the New-year 's coming up, mother, but I shall never see 
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. 

Last May we made a crown of flowers : we had a merry day : 
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May; 
And we danced about the j\Iay-pole and in the hazel copse, 
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops. 

There's not a flower on all the hills : the frost is on the pane : 
I only wish to live till the snow-drops come again : 
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high : 
I long to see a flower so before the day I die. 

The building rook '11 caw from the windy tall elm-tree, 

And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, 

And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave, 

But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave. 

Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, 
In the early, early morning the summer sun '11 shine. 
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill, 
When you are Avarm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still. 

When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light 
You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night ; 
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool, 
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. 

You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, 
And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid. 
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass, 
W^itli your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass. 

I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now; 
You'll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow ; 
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild, 
You should not fret for me, mother, — you have another child. 

If I can I'll come again, mother, fiom out my resting-place ; 
Though you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face ; 
Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say. 
And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away. 



704 



TUNNYSOJSr. 



Good-night ! good-night ! when I have said good-night for evermore, 
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door, 
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green: 
She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been. 

She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor : 
Let her take 'em : they are hers : I shall never garden more; 
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rose-bush that I set 
About the parlor-window and the box of mignonette. 

Good-night, sweet mother ! call me before the day is born. 
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn ; 
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year, 
So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. 



BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. 

Break, break, break. 

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea ! 
And I would that ray tongue could utter 

The thoughts that arise in me. 

Oh, well for the fisherman's boy, 

That he shouts with his sister at play ! 

Oh, well for the sailor lad, 

That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 

And the stately ships go on 
To their haven under the hill ; 

But oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

Break, break, break. 

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 



THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 



In her ear he whispers gayly, 

" If my heart by signs can tell, 
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, 

And I think thou lov'st me w'ell." 
She replies, in accents fainter, 

'' There is none I love like thee." 
He is but a landscape-painter. 

And a village maiden she. 
He to lips, that fondly falter, 

Presses his without reproof; 
Leads her to the village-altar. 

And they leave her father's roof. 
"I can make no marriage present; 

Little can I give my wife : 
Love will make our cottage pleasant. 

And I love thee more than life." 
They by parks and lodges going 

See the lordly castles stand : 



Summer woods, about them blowing, 

Made a murmur in the land. 
From deep thought himself he rouses. 

Says to her that loves him well, 
" Let us see these handsome houses 

Where the wealthy nobles dwell." 
So she goes, by him attended, 

Hears him lovingly converse. 
Sees whatever fair and splendid 

Lay betwixt his home and hers ; 
Parks with oak and chestnut shady, 

Parks and order'd gardens great. 
Ancient homes of lord and lady, 

Built for pleasure and for state. 
All he shows her makes him dearer: 

Evermore she seems to gaze 
On that cottage growing nearer, [days. 

Where they twain will spend their 



TENNYSON. 



70.') 



Oh, but she will love him truly ! 

He shall have a cheerful home; 
She will order all things duly, 

When beneath his roof they come. 
Thus her heart rejoices greatly, 

Till a gateway she discerns 
"With armorial bearings stately, 

And beneath the gate she turns ; 
Sees a mansion more majestic 

Than all those she saw before ; 
Many a gallant gay domestic 

Bows before him at the door. 
And they speak in gentle murmur, 

When they answer to his call, 
AVhile he treads with footsteps firmer, 

Leading on from hall to hall. 
And, while now she wonders blindly, 

Nor the meaning can divine, 
Proudly turns he round, and kindly, — 

" All of this is mine and thine !" 
Here he lives in state and bounty. 

Lord of Burleigh, fair and free ; 
Kot a lord in all the county 

Is so great a lord as he. 
All at once the color flushes 

Her sweet face from brow to chin : 
As it were with shame she blushes, 

And her spirit changed within. 
Then her countenance all over 

Pale again as death did prove ; 
But he clasp'd her like a lover, 

And he ciheer'd her soul with love. 
So she strove against her weakness. 

Though at times her spirits sank ; 



Shaped her heart, with woman's meek- 
ness. 

To all duties of her rank: 
And a gentle consort made he, 

And her gentle mind was such. 
That she grew a noble lady. 

And the people loved her much. 
But a trouble weigh'd upon her, 

And perplex'd her night and morn, 
With the burden of an honor 

Unto which she was not born. 
Faint she grew, and ever fainter. 

As she murmur' d, "Oh, that he 
Were once more that landscape- 
painter 

Which did win my heart from 
me !" 
So she droop'd and droop'd before 
him, 

Fading slowly from his side : 
Three fair children first she bore him, 

Then, before her time, she died. 
Weeping, weeping late and early. 

Walking up and pacing down. 
Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, 

Burleigh-house by Stamford-town, 
And he came to look upon her, 

And he look'd at her, and said, — 
" Bring the dress, and put it on her. 

That she wore when she was wed." 
Then her people, softly treading, 

Bore to earth her body, drest 
In the dress that she was wed in, 

That her spirit might have rest ! 



THE SLAIN WARRIOR. 

Home they brought the warrior dead 
She nor swoon' d nor utter' d cry : 

All her maidens, watching, said, 
'■' She must weep, or she will die." 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 
Call'd him worthy to be loved, 

Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place, 
Lightly to the warrior stept, 

Took the face-cloth from the face; 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Pose a nurse of ninety years. 
Set his child upon her knee ; 

Like summer tempest came her tears : 
"Sweet my child, I live for thee." 



706 TENNYSON. 

THE BUGLE SONG. 

The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story ; 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 

And the wild cataract leaps in glory: 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle, answer echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

Oh, hark ! oh, hear ! how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scar 

The horns of Elf-land faintly blowing ! 
Blow ! let us hear the purple glens replying, 
Blow, bugle, answer echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die on yon rich sky. 

They faint on hill, on field, on river ; 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 

And grow forever and forever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 

It is difficult to make selections from the IN MEMORIAM that will fairly 
represent it; for one must needs read it as a whole, to get fully into its spirit. 
The following, however, are some of the beautiful stanzas that can be read with 
pleasure by themselves. In speaking of his four years' companionship in col- 
lege with his departed friend, he thus writes: — 

XXII. 

The path by which we twain did go. 

Which led by tracts that pleased us well, 
Through four sweet years arose and fell. 

From flower to flower, from snow to snow. 

And we with singing cheer'd the way, 

And, crown'd with all the season lent, 

From April on to April went, 
And glad at heart from May to May: 

But where the path we walk'd began 

To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 

As we descended, following Hope, 
There sat the Shadow fear'd of man ; 

Who broke our fair companionship. 

And spread his mantle dark and cold ; 

And wrapp'd thee formless in the fold. 
And duird the murmur on thy lip ; 

And bore thee where I could not see 

Nor follow, though I walk in haste ; 

And think that, somewhere in the waste, 
The Shadow sits and waits for me. 

The allusion to the time when the "happy sister"' was to be their bond of 
union is very beautiful : — 



TENNYSON. 707 



LXXXII. 

When I contemplate, all alone, 

The life that had been thine below, 
And fix my thonghts on all the glow 

To which thy crescent would have grown ; 

I see thee sitting crown'd with good, 
A central warmth difliising bliss 
In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss, 

On all the branches of thy blood ; 

Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine; 
For now the day was drawing on, 
When thou shouldst link thy life with one 

Of mine own house, and boys of thine 

Had babbled "Uncle" on my knee; 
But that remorseless iron hour 
Made cypress of her orange-flower, 

Despair of Hope, and earth of thee. 

I seem to meet their least desire, 

To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. 
I see their unborn faces shine 

Beside the never-lighted fire. 

I see myself an honor'd guest. 
Thy partner in the flowery walk 
Of letters, genial table-talk, 

Or deejD dispute, and graceful jest : 

While now thy prosperous labor fills 
The lips of men with honest praise, 
And sun by sun the happy days 

Descend below the golden hills 

With promise of a morn as fair ; 

And all the train of bounteous hours 
Conduct, by paths of growing powers, 

To reverence and the silver hair; 

Till slowly worn her earthly robe. 
Her lavish mission richly wrought, 
Leaving great legacies of thought. 

Thy spirit should fail from ofi" the globe ; 

What time mine own might also flee. 
As link'd with thine in love and fate. 
And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait 

To the other shore, involved in thee, 

Arrive at last the blessed goal, 
•And He that died in Holy Land 
Would reach us out the shining hand. 

And take us as a single soul. 

What reed was that on which I leant ? 
Ah ! backward fancy ! wherefore wake 
The old bitterness again, and break 

The low beginnings of content ! 



708 TJSNNYSON. 

The spiritual qualifications for any feeling of communion with the dead are 
thus finely set forth : — 

XCII. 

How pure at heart and sound in head, 
With what divine affections bold, 
Should be the man whose thought would hold 

An hour's communion with the dead ! 

In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
The spirits from their golden day. 
Except, like them, thou too canst say, 

My spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast, 

Imaginations calm and fair, 

Tlie memory like a cloudless air, 
The conscience as a sea at rest : 

But when the heart is full of din. 

And doubt beside the portal waits. 

They can but listen at the gates 
And hear the household jar within. 

GODTVA. 

I waited for the train at Coventry; 
I kung with grooms and porters on the bridge, 
To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped 
The city's ancient legend, into this : — 

Not only we, the latest seed of Time, 
New men, that in the flying of a wheel 
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate 
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, 
And loathed to see them overtaxed ; but she 
Did more, and underwent, and overcame, 
The woman of a thousand summers back, 
Godiva, wife to that grim earl, who ruled 
In Coventry ; for when he laid a tax 
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought 
Their children, clamoring, " If we pay, we starve ;" 
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode 
About the hall, among his dogs, alone. 
His beard a foot before him, and his hair 
A yard beliind. She told him of their tears. 
And pray'd him, " If they pay this tax, they starve." 
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, 
" You would not let your little finger ache 
For such as these f" " But I would die," said she. 
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul : 
Then fiUip'd at the diamond in her ear, 
" Oh, ay, ay, ay, you talk !" " Alas !" she said, 
'' But prove me what it is I would not do." 
And from a heart, as rough as Esau's hand, 
He anewer'd, " Ride you naked through the town, 
And I repeal it ;" and nodding, as in scorn, 
He parted, with great strides among his dogs ! 



TUPPER. 709 

So left alone, the passions of her mind, 
As winds from all the compass shift and blow, 
Made war upon each other for an hour. 
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth. 
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all 
The hard condition ; but that she would loose 
The people ; therefore, as they loved her well, 
From then till noon no foot should pace the street, 
No eye look down, she passing ; but that all 
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. 

Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there 
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt, 
The grim earl's gift ; but ever at a breath 
She linger' d, looking like a summer moon 
Half dipt in cloud : anon she shook her head, 
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee; 
Unclad herself in haste ; adown the stair 
Stole on ; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid 
From pillar unto pillar, until she reached 
The gateway ; there she found her palfrey trapt 
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. 

Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity : 
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, 
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. 
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout 
Had cui\ning eyes to see : the barking cur 
Made her cheek flame : her palfrey's footfall shot 
Light horrors through her pulses : the blind walls 
Were full of chinks and holes ; and overhead 
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared : but she 
Not less through all bore up, till, last, she saw 
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field 
Gleam through the Gothic archways in the wall. 

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity : 
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, 
The fatal byword of all years to come, 
Boring a little auger-hole in fear, 
Peep'd,— but his eyes, before they had their will, 
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head. 
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait 
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused ; 
And she, that knew not, pass'd : and all at once, 
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon 
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred tow^ers, 
One after one : but even then she gain'd 
Her bower ; whence reissuing, robed and crown' d. 
To meet her lord, she took the tax away, 
And built herself an everlasting name. 



MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, 1810 

Martin Farquhar Tupper is the son of a London surgeon, and was born in 
that city in 1810. After taking his degree at Oxford, he entered at Lincoln's 
Inn, and in due time was called to the bar, but never practised as a barrister. 

60 



710 



TUPPER. 



Mr. Tupper's first publication of any importance was the first series of Pro- 
verbial Philosophy, which appeared in 1837 ,• the second, series followed in 1842. 
This work at once excited attention, and, in spite of much severe and hostile 
criticism, at once became very popular.^ His next work was Geraldine, a Sequel 
to Coleridge's Chrisiabel, with other Poems, published in 1838. This was followed, 
in 1839, by A Modern Pyramid, to commemorate a Septuagint of Worthies, — de- 
signed to furnish illustrations and descriptions of character of seventy of the 
most remarkable personages of sacred and profane history, ancient and modern. 
In 1840 appeared a pleasant volume of odds and ends, called An Author' f< Mind. 
His next work was a moral novel, published in 1844, entitled The Crock of Gold, 
— designed to illustrate the Sixth Commandment, as well as to show the curse 
and hardening effects of avarice. It is a tale beautifully told, and one of great 
interest and attraction. 

The same year (1844) Mr. Tupper published two other works of fiction, in one 
volume each, — namely, Heart, a Social Novel, and The Tioins, a Domestic Novel, 
— both highly subservient to the cause of sound morals, and depicting virtue 
and vice in their appropriate colors. His next work, published in 1845, is 
entitled A Thousand Lines, — a little tract of but sixty pages, containing poems 
on various subjects, written in a very pleasing manner. His other works are — 
Ballads for the Times on White Slavery ; Geraldine, and Poems; Three Hundred 
Sonnets; ^sop Smith's Rides and Reveries; Probabilities, an Aid to Faith; 
Stephen Langton; Lyrics of the Heart and Mind; King Alfred's Poems, translated 
from the Anglo-Saxon ; Paterfamilias' Diary of Everybody's Tour, &c. His latest 
work is Raleigh: his Life and Death, an Historical Play, 1866.2 

Mr. Tupper is most known by his Proverbial Philosophy, — a book replete with 
much sound practical wisdom, though, it must be confessed, the style of it is in 
some parts rather inflated. His prose works are also eminently instructive.^ 

OF COMPENSATION. 

Equal is the government of heaven in allotting pleasures among men, 

And just the everlasting law that hath wedded liappiness to virtue : 

For verily on all things else broodeth disappointment with care, 

That childish man may be tauglit the shallowness of earthly enjoyment. 

Wherefore, ye that have enough, envy ye the rich man his abundance? 

Wherefore, daughters of affluence, covet ye the cottager's content ? 

Take the good with the evil, for ye all are pensioners of God, 

And none may choose or refuse the cup His wisdom mixeth. 

The poor man rejoiceth at his toil, and his daily bread is sAveet to him : 

Content with present good, he looketh not for evil to the future : 

Tlie rich man languisheth with sloth, and findeth pleasure in nothing. 

He locketh up with care his gold, and feareth the fickleness of fortune. 

Can a cup contain within itself the measure of a bucket? 

Or the straiten'd appetites of man drink more than their full of luxury? 

There is a limit to enjoyment, though the sources of wealth be boundless ; 

And the choicest pleasures of life lie witliin the ring of moderation. 



1 Up to 1866, about forty editions of it had 
been published in England; while in this 
country nearly half a million copies have 
been sold. Such popularity will well repay 
an author, in spite of what the critics may 
say. 



2 A very caustic notice of this may be seen 
in the Saturday Rpviev), February 24, 1866. 

3 An " authorized edition,'' at once beautiful 
and complete, of Mr. Tupi^er's works, hns been 
published by Messrs. E. H. Butler & Co., of 
Philadelphia, in four volumes. 



TUPPER. 711 

Power is seldom innocent, and envy is the yoke-fellow of eminence ; 

And the rust of the miser's riches wastetli his soul as a canker. 

The poor man counteth not the cost at which such wealth hath been purchased ; 

He would be on the mountain's top without the toil and travail of the climbing. 

But equity demandeth recompense; for high-place, calumny and care; 

For state, comfortless splendor eating out the heart of home; 

For warrior-fame, dangers and death ; for a name among the learned, a spirit 

overstrain'd ; 
For honor of all kinds, the goad of ambition ; on every acquirement, the tax 

of anxiety. 
He that would change with another, must take the cup as it is mix'd : 
Poverty, with largeness of heart ; or a full purse, with a sordid spirit ; 
Wisdom, in an ailing body ; or a common mind, with health ; 
Godliness, with man's scorn; or the welcome of the mighty, with guilt; 
Beauty, with a fickle heart ; or plainness of fa(.'e, with ailection. 
For so hath Providence determined, that a man shall not easily discover 
Unmingled good or evil, to quicken his envy or abhorrence. 
A bold man or a fool must he be who would change his lot with another ; 
It were a fearful bargain, and mercy hath lovingly refused it; 
For we know the worst of ourselves, but the secrets of another we see not ; 
And better is certain bad, than the doubt and dread of worse. 

Just and strong and opportune is the moral rule of God. 

Ripe in its times, firm in its judgments, equal in the measure of its gifts : 

Yet men, scanning the surface, count the wicked happy. 

Nor heed the compensating peace which gladdeneth the good in his afflictions: 

They see not the frightful dreams that crowd a bad man's pillow, 

Like wreathed adders crawling round his midnight conscience ; 

They hear not the terrible suggestions that knock at the portal of his will, 

Provoking to wipe away from life the one weak witness of the deed ; 

They know not the torturing suspicions that sting his panting breast, 

When the clear eye of penetration quietly readeth ofl' the truth. 

Likewise of the good what know they ? the memories bringing pleasure, 

Shrined in the heart of the benevolent, and glistening from his eye ; 

The calm self-justifying reason that establisheth the upright in his purpose ; 

The warm and gushing bliss that floodeth all the thoughts of the religious. 

Many a beggar at the cross-way, or gray-hair'd shepherd on the plain, 

Hath more of the end of all wealth than hundreds who multiply the means. 



FORGIVE AND FORGET. 

^yhen streams of unkindness, as bitter as gall. 

Bubble up from the heart to the tongue, 
And Meekness is writhing in torment and thi'all, 

By the hands of Ingratitude wrung, — 
In tlie heat of injustice, unwept and unfair, 

While the anguish is festering yet. 
None, none but an angel or God can declare, 

" I now can forgive and forget." 

But, if the bad spirit is chased from the heart. 
And the lips are in penitence steei)'d, 

With the wrong so repented the wrath will depart. 
Though scorn or injustice were heap'd : 

For the best compensation is paid for all ill. 
When the cheek with contrition is wet, 



712 HELPS. 

And every one feel? it is possible still 
At once to forgive and ibrget. 

To forget ? It is hard for a man with a mind, 

However liis heart may forgive, 
To blot ont all insults and evils behind, 

And but for the future to live : 
Then how shall it be ? for at every turn 

Eecollection the spirit will fret, 
And the ashes of injury smoulder and burn. 

Though Ave strive to forgive and forget. 

Oh, hearken ! my tongue shall the riddle unseal. 

And mind shall be partner Avith heart. 
While thee to thyself I bid conscience reveal. 

And show thee how evil thou art : 
Remember thy follies, thy sins, and — thy crimes, 

How vast is that infinite debt! 
Yet Mercy hath seven by seventy times 

Been swift to forgive and forget ! 

Brood not on insults or injuries old, 

For thou art injurious too, — 
Count not their sum till the total is told. 

For thou art unkind and untrue : 
And if all thy harms are forgotten, forgiven, 

Now mercy with justice is met ; 
Oh, who would not gladly take lessons of heaven, 

Nor learn to forgive and forget ? 

Yes, yes ; let a man, when his enemy weeps. 

Be quick to receive him a friend : 
For thus on liis head in kindness he heaps 

Hot coals, — to refine and amend ; 
And hearts that are Christian more eagerly yearn. 

As a nurse on her innocent pet, 
Over lips that, once bitter, to penitence turn. 

And whisper, Forgive and forget. 



ART HUE HELPS, 1811- 



Arthur Helps, the essayist and historian, was born about 1811, and graduated 
at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1835. Shortly after this he obtained a post in 
the civil service, and soon rose to the office of Secretary to the Privy Council. 
His leisure time he has devoted to literature, and with such success as to give 
him a place as an essayist upon the same shelf with Lamb and Hunt, and as 
an historian equal to that of any of his contem.poraries. His first work was 
Essays ivritten in the Intervals of Business, 1841, which has passed through 
many editions. This was followed by two dramas, — Catharine Douglass, and 
King Henry Second, 1843; by Claims of Labor, 1844; by Friends in Council, 
1847; by Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen, 1848: and by Com- 
panions of my Solitude, 1861. In 1855 appeared The Spanish Conquest o/ylmc- 
riea; and in 1859, a second series of Friends in Council, which fully maintains 



HELPS. 713 

the character of the first, in its depth and beauty of thought and purity of 
style. Indeed, few books can be more safely and warmly commended for 
pleasant and profitable reading than Friends in Council. 



C0NTENT3IENT. 

Fit objects to employ the intervals of life are among the greatest 
aids to contentment that a man can possess. The lives of many 
persons are an alternation of the one engrossing pursuit, and a 
sort of listless apathy. They are either grinding or doing nothing. 
Now, to those who are half their lives fiercely busy, the remain- 
ing half is often torpid without quiescence. A man should have 
some pursuits which may be always in his power, and to which 
he may turn gladly in his hours of recreation. And if the intel- 
lect requires thus to be provided with perpetual objects, what 
must it be with the affections ? Depend upon it, the most fatal 
idleness is that of the heart ; and the man who feels weary of life 
may be sure he does not love his fellow-creatures as he ought. 

OUR PLEASURES. 

Let us be hearty in our pleasures as in our work, and not think 
the gracious Being Avho has made us so open-hearted to delight 
looks with dissatisfaction at our enjoyments, as a hard taskmaster 
might, who in the glee of his slaves could see only a hindrance 
to their profitable working. And with reference to our indi- 
vidual cultivation, we may remember that we are not here to 
promote incalculable quantities of law, physic, or manufactured 
goods, but to become men ; not narrow pedants, but wide-seeing, 
mind-travelled men. * * * Qur poor and arid education has 
often made time hang heavy on our hands, given opportunity for 
scandal, occasioned domestic dissension, and prevented the just 
enjoyment we should have had of the gifts of nature. More 
large and general cultivation of music, the fine arts, of manly 
and graceful exercises, of various minor branches of science and 
natural philosophy, will, I am persuaded, enhance greatly the 
pleasure of society ; and mainly in this, that it will fill up that 
want of something to do besides talking which is so grievously 
felt at present. 

ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS. 

In the first place, if people are to live happily together, they 
must not fancy, because they are thrown together now, that all 
their lives have been exactly similar up to the present time, that 
they started exactly alike, and that they are to be for the future 
of the same mind. A thorough conviction of the difference of 
men is the great thing to be assured of in social knowledge : it is 

60* 



714 HELPS. 

to life what Newton's law is to astronomy. Sometimes men have 
a knowledge of it with regard to the world in general : they do 
not expect the outer world to agree with them in all points, but 
are vexed at not being able to drive their own tastes and opinions 
into those they live with. Diversities distress them. They will 
not see that there are many forms of virtue and wisdom. Yet we 
might as well say, " Why all these stars ? Why this difference ? 
Why not all one star ?" 

Many of the rules for people living together in peace follow 
from the above. For instance, not to interfere unreasonably 
with others, not to ridicule their tastes, not to question and re- 
question their resolves, not to indulge in perpetual comment on 
their proceedings, and to delight in their having other pursuits 
than ours, — are all based upon a thorough perception of the 
simple fact that they are not we. * * * The number of 
people who have taken out judges' patents for themselves is very 
large in any society. Now, it would be hard for a man to live 
with another who was always criticizing his actions, even if it 
were kindly and just criticism. It would be like living between 
the glasses of a microscope. But these self-elected judges, like 
their prototypes, are very apt to have the persons they judge 
brought before them in the guise of culprits. 

One of the most provoking forms of the criticism above alluded 
to is that which may be called criticism over the shoulder. " Had 
I been consulted," " Had you listened to me," " But you always 
will," and such short scraps of sentences, may remind many of 
us of dissertations which we have suffered and inflicted, and of 
which we cannot call to mind any soothing effect. Another rule 
is, not to let familiarity swallow up all courtesy. Many of us 
have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as 
we say about strangers behind their backs. There is no place, 
however, where real politeness is of more value than where we 
mostly think it would be superfluous. You may say more truth, 
or, rather, speak out more 23lainly, to your associates, but not less 
courteously than you do to strangers. 

ADVANTAGES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 

This, then, is one of the advantages of travel, that we come 
upon new ground, which we tread lightly, which is free from 
associations that claim- too deep and constant an interest from us ; 
and, not resting long in any one place, but travelling onwards, 
we maintain that desirable lightness of mind : we are spectators, 
having for the time no duties, no ties, no associations, no respon- 
sibilities ; nothing to do but to look on, and look fairly. Another 
of the great advantages of travel lies in what you learn from your 
companions ; not merely from those you set out with, or so much 



BROWNING. 715 

from them as from those whom you are thrown together with on the 
journey. I reckon this advantage to be so great, that I should 
be inclined to say that you often get more from your companions 
in travel than from all you come to see. People imagine they 
are not known, and that they shall never meet again with the 
same company, — which is very likely so ; they are free for the 
time from the trammels of their business, profession, or calling; 
the marks of the harness begin to wear out ; and, altogether, they 
talk more like men than slaves with their several functions 
hanging like collars round their necks. An ordinary man on 
travel will sometimes talk like a great imaginative man at home, 
for such are never utterly enslaved by their functions. Then the 
diversities of character you meet w'ith instruct and delight you. 
The variety in language, dress, behavior, religious ceremonies, 
mode of life, amusements, arts, climate, government, lays hold 
of your attention and takes you out of the wheel-tracks of your 
everyday cares. He must, indeed, be either an angel of con- 
stancy and perseverance, or a Avonderfully obtuse Caliban of a 
man, who, amidst all this change, can maintain his private griefs 
or vexations exactly in the same place they held in his heart 
while he was packing for his journey. The change of language 
is alone a great delight. You pass along, living only with gentle- 
men and scholars ; for you rarely detect what is vulgar or inept 
in the talk around you. Children's talk in another language is 
not childish to you ; and, indeed, every thing is literature, from 
the announcement at a railway-station to the advertisements in a 
newspaper. Kead the Bible in another tongue, and you will per- 
haps find a beauty in it you have not thoroughly appreciated 
for years before. 



ROBERT BROWNING, 1812 

In no book that pretends to represent the literature of England of the nine- 
teenth century should the name of Robert Browning be omitted. He was born 
in 1812, in Camberwell, a suburb of London, and was educated at the London 
University. The drama of Paracelsus, published in 1836, first brought hira 
into notice. This was followed, in 1837, by Strafford, an Historical Tragedy; 
and this by Bordello, in 1840. From 1842 to 1846 he published a series of 
poems, entitled Bells and Pomegranates. In 1846 he was married to the cele- 
brated poetess, Miss Elizabeth Barrett. In 1850 he published Christmas Eve, 
Easter-Day, and Pippa Passes; in 1855, Men and Women, a collection of mis- 
cellaneous poems ;i and in 1864, Dramatis Personce. After his marriage, Mr. 



1 A sympathetic critic saj-s that these poems, I delicate and impassioned conditions, and ab- 
" for depth and subtlety of conception, pro- stract speculative insight, are unsurpassed in 
found analysis of the human mind in its most ) the English language." — Chambers's Eng. Lit. 



716 



BROWNING. 



Browning resided principally at Florence; but upon the death of his wife he 
returned to London, where he now lives. 

Mr. Browning is a highly-finished scholar, and, besides poetry, has specially 
cultivated the arts of music and painting, in which he is said to excel. That he 
is also a genuine poet we would not deny; but most of his poetry is of a cha- 
racter so exceedingly subtle and abstruse that it never can become popular. 
It has been said in his praise — if it be praise — that he writes only for "the in- 
tellectual few." But infinitely better does it seem to us so to write as to please, 
delight, and instruct the great mass of men and women, as Shakspeare and 
Milton and Pope^ and Cowper and Goldsmith and Campbell have done, than to 
be the author of thousands of such works as SordeUo or the Dramatis JPersonx.'^ 
The one is like a fitful blaze, that flares up suddenly in a small circle, and soon 
disappears ; the others, like a bright and steady light, that throws its benignant 
rays around the horizon, shining on and on through successive ages : the one 
will be read and praised, temporarily, by a few, and then pass into comparative 
neglect and forgetfulness ; the others will continue to give profit and delight 
to millions, through all time, wherever the English language is known. 



PARACELSUS ON HIS DEATH-BED.^ 

Scene:— ^ cell in the HoRpital of St. Sebastian, at Salzburg, 15-41. Crxvl.kcters :—Aureolus, 
Paracelsus, and his friend Fcstits. 

Fest. No change ! The weary night is welhiigh spent, 
The lamp burns low, and through the casement-bars 
Gray morning glimmers feebly, — yet no change! 
Another night, and still no sigh has stirr'd 
That fallen discolor'd mouth, no pang relit 
Those fix'd eyes, qiiench'd by the decaying body, 
Like torch-Hame choked in dust : while all beside 
Was breaking, to the last they held out bright, 
As a stronghold where life intrench' d itself; 
But they are dead now, — very blind and dead. 
He will drowse into death without a groan ! 



1 " Since Pope and plain sense went out, and 
Shelley and the seventh heaven came in." — 
Charles Kingsley. 

2 To me (and it "may be from my own ob- 
tuseness) much of Mr. Browning's poetry is 
altogether unintelligible; his meaning and 
aims seeming like Gratiano's reasons, — " as 
two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of 
chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find 
them, and, when you have found them, they 
are not worth the search." In this my opi- 
nion long ago entertained, I am glad to be 
fortified by an admirable article in the Edin- 
burgh Review of October, 1864, of which I will 
quote a few lines: — "The age now appears to 
be ripe for some Theory of tlie Obscure, which, 
like Pope's famous Treatise on Bathos, or the 
Art of Sinking in Poetry, might be copiously 
illustrated from the works of contemporary 
poets, and afford at least a warning to the 
young aspirant for the honors of verse. For 
such a book, Mr. Browning's volumes would 
form an inexhaustible mine of examples; and 



the last volume which he has published is per- 
haps richer than any that have preceded it in 
materials for such a purpose." Again : — " It 
was said of an eminent lawyer that he wrote 
his opinions in three different kinds of liand- 
writing, — one which he and his clerk conld 
read, another which only he himself could 
decipher, and a third which neither he nor 
anybody else could make out; and into similar 
categories are we compelled to parcel out the 
poems of the Dramatis Personse of Mr. Brown- 
ing." Read that fine piece upon The Two 
Prophets, by Horatius Bonar, page 693. 

3 The moral thesis of Paracelsus (and this is 
to us the most readable of all Mr. Browning's 
works) seems to be tlie story of one starting 
out in life in the eager pursuit after know 
ledge. But the hero of the poem learns. Iiy 
the defeat of his plans and the disappointment 
of his hopes, that the perfect man is not all 
head, — that heart is absolutely necessary, ami 
that there can be no true happiness without 
endeavoring to make others happy. 



BlWWmNG. 717 

My Aureole ! — my forgotten, ruin'd Aureole ! 

The days are gone, — are gone ! How grand thou Avert: 

And now not one of those who struck thee down — 

Poor, glorious spirit — concerns him even to stay 

And satisfy himself his little hand 

Could turn God's image to a livid thing. 

Another night, and yet no change ! 'Tis much 

That 1 should sit by him, and bathe his brow, 

And chafe his hands, — 'tis much : but he will sure 

Know me, and look on me, and speak to me 

Once more, — but only once ! His hollow cheek 

Look'd all night long as though a creeping laugh 

At his own state were just about to break 

From the dying man : my brain swam, my throat swell'd, 

And yet I could not turn away. In truth. 

They told me how, when first brought here, he seem'd 

Resolved to live, — to lose no faculty ; 

Thus striving to keep up his shatter'd strength, 

Until they bore him to this stifling cell : 

When straight his features fell, — an hour made white 

The flush' d face and relax' d the quivering limb ; 

Only the eye remain'd intense awhile. 

As though it recognized the tomb-like place ; 

And then he lay as here he lies. 

Ay, here ! 
Here is earth's noblest, nobly garlanded, — 
Her bravest champion, with his well-won meed, — 
Her best achievement, her sublime amends 
For countless generations, fleeting fast 
And foUow'd by no trace ; — the creature-god 
She instances when angels would dispute 
The title of her brood to rank with them — 
Angels, this is our angel I — those bright forms 
We clothe with purple, crown and call to thrones, 
Are human, but not his : those are but men 
Whom other men press round and kneel before, — • 
Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind ; 
Higher provision is for him you seek 
Amid our pomps and glories : see it here ! 
Behold earth's paragon ! Now, raise thee, clay ! 

God ! Thou art Love ! I build my faith on that ! 

Even as I w^atch beside thy tortured child. 

Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him. 

So doth thy right hand guide us through the world 

Wherein Ave stumble. God ! Avhat shall we say ? 

How has he sinn'd? How else should he have done? 

Surely he sought thy praise, — thy praise, for all 

He rnight be busied by the task so much 

As to forget aAvhile its proper end. 

Dost thou Avell, Lord ? Thou canst not but prefer 

That I should range myself upon his side, — 

HoAV could he stop at every step to set 

Thy glory forth ? " Hadst Thou but granted him 

Success, thy honor Avould have croAvn'd success, 

A halo round a star. Or, say he err'd, — 

Save him, dear God ; it Avill be like thee : bathe him 



X^ 



718 DICKENS. 

In light and life ! Thou art not made like us ; 
We should be wroth in such a (.'ase ; but Thou 
Forgivest, — so, forgive these passionate thoughts, 
Which come unsought, and will not pass away! 
I know thee, who hast kept my path, and made 
Light for me in the darkness, — tempering sorrow, 
So that it reach'd me like a solemn joy ; 
It were too strange that I should doubt thy love : 
But what am I ? Thou madest him, and knowest 
How he was fashion'd. I could never err 
That way : the quiet place beside thy feet, 
Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts ; 
But he, — thou shouldst have favor'd him as well ! 

Ah, he wakes ! Aureole, I am here, — 'tis Festus ! 

I cast away all wishes save one wish, — 

Let him but know me, — only speak to me J * ^ * 

Par. Stay, stay with me ! 

Fest. I will ; I am copae here 

To stay with you, — Festus, you loved of old ; 
Festus, you know, you must know i * * * 

Par. Festus, my own friend, you are come at last ? 
As you say, 'tis an awful enterprise, — 
But you believe I shall go through with it : * * * 
, Fest. How feel you. Aureole ? 

Par. _ _ ^ Well! 

Well: 'tis a strange thing. I am dying, Festus, 
And now that fast the storm of life subsides, 
I first perceive how great the whirl has been : 
I was calm then, who am so dizzy now, — 
Calm in the thick of the tempest, but no less 
A partner of its motion, and mix'd up 
With its career. The hurricane is spent. 
And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather ; 
But is it earth or sea that heaves below ? ^ * * 
And this is death : I understand it all. 
New being waits me ; new perceptions must 
Be born in me before I plunge therein ; 
Which last is Death's atiair ; and, while I speak. 
Minute by minute he is filling me 
With power ; and, while my foot is on the threshold 
Of boundless life, — the doors unopen'd yet, 
All preparations not complete within, — 
I turn new knowledge upon old events. 

And the effect is But I must not tell ; 

It is not lawful. Your own turn will come 
One day. Wait, Festus ! You will die like me ! 



CHARLES DICKENS, 1812 

Op all the novelists of the nineteenth century (and if of the nineteenth, of all 
centuries), Charles Dickens, in point of genius, is unquestionably the greatest. 
He was born at Landport, Hampshire, February 7, 1812. His father, John 



DICKENS. 



719 



Dickens, was in the government service there; and after the conclusion of the 
war with Napoleon, 1815, he retired upon a pension, and occupied himself in 
reporting for the London press, in which he was assisted by his son, who soon 
distinguished himself in this line, and became connected with the Morning 
Chronicle. In the columns of this paper he first gave evidence of his talents, 
in the lively essays, Sketches of English Life and Character, which afterwards 
(1886) appeared as Sketches, hy £oz.^ The success of this first efi'ort was so de- 
cided, that one of the firm of Chapman & Hall, booksellers, proposed to him to 
write a story after the same manner. Thus originated the famous Pickwick 
Papers, which at once gave him rank, at the early age of twenty-five, as the 
most popular of English novelists, .and may be considered as marking an era 
in our literature, as it was "the first of a series of fictitious works exhibiting 
the life ^nd manners of the middle and lower classes, which up to that time 
had had scarcely any exponent." His next work was Nicholas Nickleby"^ (gene- 
rally considered his best), graphically describing scenes of modern English life, 
and especially aiming at the wrongs and cruelties practised in the cheap 
schools in Yorkshire. About this time he was engaged as editor of Bentley's 
Miscellany, to the pages of which he contributed the story of Oliver Twist, — 
laying bare some of the lowest and vilest forms of London life. Then fol- 
lowed Master Humphrey's Clock, containing The Old Curiosity Shop, and £ar- 
naby Rudge. In the former of these, in the character of Little Nelly, he first 
exhibited his wonderful power in painting child-life and child-thought in a 
style of beauty and pathos that has never been surpassed; in the second he 
depicts the " Gordon riots" in London. Soon after this appeared, Mr. Dickens 
came over to our country and travelled pretty extensively through it : on his 
return he published American Notes for General Circulation.^ His next work, 
Martiji Chuzzleioit, was upon the same general theme, and is considered the 
greatest of his humorous works since the Pickwick Papers. 

About this time Dickens went to Italy, where he stayed a year. On his re- 
turn home, in 1845, the Daily News was started under his editorial auspices, 
and to its columns he contributed the sketches called Pictures of Italy. But the 
position was not congenial with his tastes, and he soon withdrew from it and 
returned to his own loved walk. Dovihey and Son, the story of a purse-proud 
merchant, appeared in 184:7 ; David Copperfidd, depicting the career of a young 
literary man struggling up to fame, in 1849 ; Bleak House, founded on the 
miseries of a suit in Chancery, in 1853 ; Little Dorritt, the story of a young girl's 
devotion to a father in prison for debt, in 1856; A Tale of Tioo Cities, in 1859; 
Great Expectations, in 1861 ; and Our Mutual Friend, in 1865. In 1850 he started 
Household Words, — a weekly periodical which was enriched by the contribu- 
tions of some of the ablest writers of the day, and which was brought to a con- 
clusion in 1859. The next year succeeded All the Year Round, similar in plan 
and form : this is still published (1866), and has a very large circulation. 



1 It is said that Boz was a little sister's cor- 
rnption of the name of her younger brother, 
Moses, and that Dickens always called himself 
by that name. 

2 In the mean time he had married a daugh- 
ter of Mr. George Hogarth, a music writer and 
critic. 

8 In these Notes there are many mistakes 
and many blunders, and some of our national 
customs and habits are so overdrawn as to be 
mere caricatures. But, after all, we must can- 



didly acknowledge that the author tells us 
many plain, if unpleasant, truths; and we 
ought wisely to profit by his strictures, and not 
be angry with him. If he calls us " the great 
spitting nation," who can say we are not? I 
have travelled through Great Britain and 
most of the countries of Europe, and have 
never seen that vilest of weeds, tobacco, so 
much used in the nastiest of all its forms^ 
chewing — as in my own land. I say it with 
shame. 



720 DICKENS. 

The time, perhaps, has not yet come for an impartial estimation of the 
iVritings and genius of Dickens. That he stands at the head of all writers of 
tiction is, however, generally conceded : so that he has' been not inaptly called 
"the prose Shakspeare of the nineteenth century." His chief excellence is his 
keen and exquisite perception of the ludicrous; to which he adds great powers 
of pathetic description, and extensive knowledge of character. His power of 
sarcasm is great; but it has nothing of the cynical character which is too 
often seen in the writings of Thackeray. The general eflect of his works is not 
to produce in the heart feelings of disgust at the world, but rather a deep 
sympathy with those whose lot in it has been a hard one. In a word, he is a 
genial writer; and one cannot rise from the perusal of most of his works with- 
out having his heart mellowed by their kindly influences. 



DEATH OF PAUL DOMBEY. 

"Floy,"^ said Paul, "what is that?" "Where, dearest?" 
" There ! at the bottom of the bed." " There's nothing there 
except papa!" The figure lifted up its head and rose, and, 
coming to the bedside, said, " My own boy, don't you know me ?" 
Paul looked it in the face, and thought, AVas this his father? 
But the face, so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, 
as if it were in pain ; and, before he could reach out both his 
hands to take it between them and draw it towards him, the 
figure turned away quickly from the little bed and went out at 
the door. Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart ; but 
he knew what she was going to say, and stopped her with his 
face against her lips. The next time he observed the figure sit- 
ting at the bottom of the bed, he called to it, " Don't be so sorry 
for me, dear papa ; indeed, I am quite happy !" His father 
coming, and bending down to him, — which he did quickly, and 
without first pausing by the bedside, — Paul held him round the 
neck, and repeated these words to him several times, and very 
earnestly ; and Paul never saw him again in his room at any 
time, whether it were day or night, but he called out, " Don't 
be so sorry for me ; indeed, I am quite happy." This was the 
beginning of his always saying in the morning that he was a 
great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so. 

How many times the golden water danced upon the wall, — 
how many nights the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea in 
spite of him, — Paul never counted, never sought to know. If 
their kindness, or his sense of it, could have increased, they w^ere 
more kind, and he more grateful, every day ; but whether they 
were many days or few, appeared of little moment now to the 
gentle boy. One night he had been thinking of his mother and 
her picture in the drawing-room down-stairs, and had thought 
she must have loved sweet Florence better than his father did, to 

1 " Floy" is Florence, his sister. 



DICKENS. 721 

have held her in her arms when she felt that she was dying ; for 
even he, her brother, who had such dear love for her, could have 
no greater wish than that. The train of thought suggested to 
him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother ; for he could not 
remember whether they had told him yes or no, — the river run- 
ning very fast, and confusing his mind. " Floy, did I ever see 
mamma ?" " No, darling : why ?" " Did I never see any kind 
face, like mamma's, looking at me when I was a baby, Floy?" 
he asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before 
him. " Oh, yes, dear." " Whose, Floy ?" " Your old nurse's ; 
often." "And where is my old nurse?" said Paul. "Is she 
dead too ? Floy, are we all dead, except you ?" 

There was a hurry in the room for an instant, — longer, per- 
haps, but it seemed no more, — then all was still again; and 
Florence, with her face quite colorless, but smiling, held his head 
upon her arm. Her arm trembled very much. " Show me that 
old nurse, Floy, if you please !" " She is not here, darling. She 
shall come to-morrow." " Thank you, Floy !" 

"And who is this? Is this my old nurse?" said the child, 
regarding with a radiant smile a figure coming in. Yes, yes ! 
No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of him, 
and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor 
blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by 
his bed, and taken up his wasted hand and put it to her lips and 
breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. No other woman 
would have so forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, and 
been so full of tenderness and pity. " Floy, this is a kind, good 
face!" said Paul. "I am glad to see it again. Don't go away, 
old nurse ! Stay here !" 

" Now lay me down," he said ; " and, Floy, come close to me 
and let me see you !" Sister and brother wound their arms 
around each other, and the golden light came streaming in and 
fell upon them, locked together. " How fast the river runs be- 
tween its green banks and the rushes, Floy ! But it's very near the 
sea. I hear the waves! They always said so." Presently he 
told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling 
him to rest. How green the banks were now ! how bright the 
flowers growing on them ! and how tall the rushes ! Now the 
boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on ; and now there was 
a shore before them. Who stood on the bank? He put his 
hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He 
did not remove his arms to do it ; but they saw him fold them so, 
behind her neck. " Mamma is like you, Floy : I know her by 
the face ! But tell them that the print upon the stairs at school 
is not divine enough. The light about the head is shining on me 
as I go !" 

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing 

61 



722 DICKENS. 

else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion ! The fashion 
that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged 
until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is 
rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion, — Death ! Oh, 
thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immor- 
tality ! And look upon us, angels of young children, with re- 
gards not quite estranged when the swift river bears us to the 
ocean ! — Domhey and Son. 

PICKWICK AND THE CAB-DRIVER. 

" Cab !" said Mr. Pickwick. 

" Here you are, sir," shouted a strange specimen of the human 
race, in a sackcloth coat and apron of the same, who, with a 
brass label and number round his neck, looked as if he were 
catalogued in some collection of rarities. This was the water- 
man. " Here you are, sir. Now, then, fust cab !" And the fust 
cab having been fetched from the public-house, where he had 
been smoking his first pipe, Mr. Pickwick and his portmanteau 
were thrown into the vehicle. 

" Golden Cross," said Mr. Pickwick. 

" Only a bob's vorth, Tommy," cried the driver, sulkily, for 
the information of his friend the waterman, as the cab drove off. 

*' How old is that horse, my friend ?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, 
rubbing his nose with the shilling he had reserved for the fare. 

" Forty-two," replied the driver, eyeing him askant. 

" What !" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand upon his 
note-book. The driver reiterated his former statement. Mr. 
Pickwick looked very hard at the man's face, but his features 
were immovable ; so he noted down the fact forthwith. 

" And how long do you keep him out at a time ?" inquired 
Mr. Pickwick, searching for further information. 

" Two or three veeks," replied the man. 

" Weeks !" said Mr. Pickwick, in astonishment ; and out came 
the note-book again. 

"He lives at Pentonwil when he's at home," observed the 
driver, coolly ; '' but we seldom takes him home, on account of his 
veakness." 

"On account of his weakness !" reiterated the perplexed Mr. 
Pickwick. 

" He always falls down when he's took out o' the cab," continued 
the driver ; " but when he's in it we bears him up worry tight and 
takes him in worry short, so as he can't worry well fall down, and 
we've got a pair o' precious large wheels on ; so ven he does move, 
they run after him, and he must go on, — he can't help it." 

Mr. Pickwick entered every word of this statement in his note- 
book, with the view of communicating it to the club, as a singular 



DICKENS. 723 

instance of the tenacity of life in horses under trying circum- 
stances. The entry was scarcely completed when they reached 
the Golden Cross. Down jumped the driver, and out got Mr. 
Pickwick. Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Winkle, who 
had been anxiously waiting the arrival of their illustrious leader, 
crowded to welcome him. 

" Here's your fare," said Mr. Pickwick, holding out the shil- 
ling to the driver. 

What was the learned man's astonishment when that unac- 
countable person flung the money on the pavement, and requested, 
in figurative terms, to be allowed the pleasure of fighting him 
(Mr. Pickwick ) for the amount ! 

" You are mad,'" said Mr. Snodgrass. 
" Or drunk," said Mr. Winkle. 
" Or both," said Mr. Tupman. 

" Come on !" said the cab-driver, sparring away like clock- 
work. " Come on, — all four on you !" 

" Here's a lark !" shouted half a dozen hackney-coachmen. 
"Go to vork, Sam;" and they crowded with great glee round 
the party. 

" What's the row, Sam ?" inquired one gentleman in black 
calico sleeves. 

" Row !" replied the cabman. " What did he want my num- 
ber for?" 

" I didn't want your number," said the astonished Mr. Pick- 
wick. 

" AVhat did you take it for, then?" inquired the cabman. 
" I didn't take it," said Mr. Pickwick, indignantly. 
" Would anybody believe," continued the cab-driver, appealing 
to the crowd, — " would anybody believe as an informer 'ud go 
about in a man's cab, not only takin' down his number, but ev'ry 
word he says into the bargain ?" (A light flashed upon Mr. Pick- 
wick : — it was the note-book.) 

" Did he, though ?" inquired another cabman. 
" Yes, did he," replied the first ; " and then, arter aggerawatin' 
me to assault him, gets three witnesses here to prove it. But I'll 
give it him, if I've six months for it. Come on !" And the cab- 
man dashed his hat upon the ground, with a reckless disregard 
of his own private property, and knocked Mr. Pickwick's spec- 
tacles oflP, and followed up the attack with a blow on Mr. Pick- 
wick's nose, and another on Mr. Pickwick's chest, and a third on 
Mr. Snodgrass's eye, and a fourth, by way of variety, in Mr. Tup- 
man's waistcoat, and then danced into the road, and then back 
again to the pavement, and finally dashed the whole temporary 
supply of breath out of Mr. Winkle's body ; and all in half a 
dozen seconds. 

" Where's an officer ?" said Mr. Snodgrass. 



724 DICKENS. 

" Put 'em under the pump," suggested a hot-pieman. 

" You shall smart for this," gasped Mr. Pickwick. 

" Informers !" shouted the crowd. 

" Come on !" cried the cabman, who had been sparring without 
cessation the whole time. 

The mob had hitherto been passive spectators of the scene ; 
but, as the intelligence of the Pickwickians being informers was 
spread among them, they began to canvass with considerable 
vivacity the propriety of enforcing the heated-pastry vender's 
proposition : and there is no saying what acts of personal ag- 
gression they might have committed, had not the affray been 
unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a new-comer. 

" What's the fun ?" said a rather tall, thin young man, in a 
green coat, emerging suddenly from the coach-yard. 

" Informers !" shouted the crowd. 

" We are not !" roared Mr. Pickwick, in a tone w^hich, to any 
dispassionate listener, carried conviction with it. 

" A'n't you, though? — a'n't you?" said the young man, appeal- 
ing to Mr. Pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by 
the infallible process of elbowing the countenances of its com- 
ponent members. 

That learned man, in a few hurried words, explained the real 
state of the case. 

" Come along, then," said he of the green coat, lugging Mr. 
Pickwick after him by main force, and talking the whole way. 

TIM LINK IN WATER'S WINDOW. 

" There's a double wall-flower at No. 6 in the court, is there ?" 
said Nicholas. 

" Yes, there is," replied Tim, " and planted in a cracked jug 
without a spout. There were hyacinths there this last spring, 
blossoming in ; but you'll laugh at that, of course." 

"At what?" 

" At their blossoming in old blacking-bottles," said Tim. 

" Not I, indeed," returned Nicholas. 

Tim looked wistfully at him for a moment, as if he were en- 
couraged by the tone of his reply to be more communicative on 
the subject ; and, sticking behind his ear a pen that he had been 
making, and shutting up his knife with a sharp click, said, 
"They belong to a sickly, bedridden, hump-backed boy, and 
seem to be the only pleasures, Mr. Nickleby, of his sad existence. 
How many years is it," said Tim, pondering, " since I first noticed 
him, quite a little child, dragging himself about on a pair of tiny 
crutches ? Well, well ! not many ; but though they would appear 
nothing if I thought of other things, they seem a long, long time 
when I think of him. It is a sad thing," said Tim, breaking off, 



DICKENS. 725 

"to see a little deformed child sitting apart from other children, 
who are active and merr}', watching the games he is denied the 
power to share in. He made my heart ache very often." 

" It is a good heart," said Nicholas, " that disentangles itself 
from the close avocations of every day, to heed such things. You 
were saying " 

" That the flowers belonged to this poor boy," said Tim ; " that's 
all. When it is fine weather, and he can crawl out of bed, he 
draws a chair close to the window, and sits there looking at them 
and arranging them all day long. We used to nod at first, and 
then we came to speak. Formerly, when I called to him of a 
morning, and asked him how he was, he would smile and say, 
' Better ;' but now he shakes his head, and only bends more 
closely over his old plants. It must be dull to watch the dark 
house-tops and the flying clouds for so many months ; but he is 
very patient." 

" Is there nobody in the house to cheer or help him ?" asked 
Nicholas. 

"His father lives there, I believe," replied Tim, "and other 
people too ; but no one seems to care much for the poor sickly 
cripple. I have asked him very often if I can do nothing for 
him : his answer is always the same, — 'Nothing.' His voice has 
grown weak of late ; but I can see that he makes the old reply. 
He can't leave his bed now, so they have moved it close beside 
the window ; and there he lies all day, now looking at the sky, 
and now at his flow^ers, which he still makes shift to trim and 
water with his own thin hands. At night, when he sees my candle, 
he draws back his curtain, and leaves it so till I am in bed. It 
seems such company to him to know that I am there, that I often 
sit at my window for an hour or more, that he may see I am still 
awake ; and sometimes I get up in the night to look at the dull, 
melancholy light in his little room, and wonder whether he is 
awake or sleeping. 

" The night will not be long coming," said Tim, " when he will 
sleep and never wake again on earth. We have never so much 
as shaken hands in all our lives; and yet I shall miss him like 
an old friend. Are there any country flowers that could inte- 
rest me like these, do you think? Or do you suppose that the 
withering of a hundred kinds of the choicest flowers that blow, 
called by the hardest Latin names that were ever invented, 
would give me one fraction of the pain that I shall feel when 
these old jugs and bottles are swept a^vay as lumber? Country!" 
cried Tim, with a contemptuous emphasis ; " don't you know that 
I couldn't have such a court under my bed-room window any- 
where but in London ?" 

With which inquiry, Tim turned his back, and, pretending to 
be absorbed in his accounts, took an opportunity of hastily 

61* 



726 DICKENS. 

wiping his eyes, when he supposed Nicholas was looking another 
way. — Nicholas Nichlehy. 

THE DEATH OF LITTLE NELL. 

She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from 
trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh 
from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life ; not one 
who had lived and suffered death. 

Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries 
and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. 
" When I die, put near me something that has loved the light 
and had the sky above it always." Those were her words. 

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. 
Her little bird — a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger 
would* have crushed — was stirring nimbly in its cage ; and the 
strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless for- 
ever. 

Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings and 
fatigues? All gone. Sorrow Avas dead indeed in her ; but peace 
and perfect happiness were born, — imaged in her tranquil beauty 
and profound repose. 

And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. 
Yes. The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face ; it 
had passed like a dream through haunts of misery and care ; at 
the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before 
the furnace-fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of 
the dying boy, there had been the same mild, lovely look. So 
shall Ave know the angels in their majesty, after death. 

The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small 
hand tight folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand 
she had stretched out to him with her last smile, — ^the hand that 
had led him on through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he 
pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, mur- 
muring that it was warmer now ; and as he said it, he looked, 
in agony, to those who stood around, as if imploring them to 
help her. 

She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient 
rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was 
waning fast, — the garden she had tended, — the eyes she had 
gladdened, — the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour, — 
the paths she had trodden as it were but yesterday, — could know 
her no more. 

" It is not," said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her 
on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, " it is not on earth 
that Heaven's justice ends. Think what it is compared with the 
World to which her young spirit h^s Ayioged its early flight, and 



DICKENS. 727 

say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this 
bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it !" 

When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on 
the subject of tlieir grief, they heard how her life had closed. 

She had been dead two days. They Avere all about her at the 
time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon 
after daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the earlier 
portion of the night ; but, as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep. 
They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that 
they were of her journeyings with the old man : they were of no 
painful scenes, but of those who had helped ancl used them 
kindly ; for she often said, " God bless you !" with great fervor. 
Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was 
at beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. 
It may have been. 

Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged 
that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to 
the old man with a lovely smile upon her face, — such, they said, 
as they had never seen, and never could forget, — and clung with 
both her arms about his neck. They did not know that she was 
dead, at first. 

She had never murmured or complained, but, with a quiet 
mind, and manner quite unaltered, — save that she every day be- 
came more earnest and more grateful to them, — faded like the 
light upon a summer's evening. 

The child who had been her little friend came there almost as 
soon as it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he 
begged them to lay upon her breast. It was he who had come to 
the window overnight and spoken to the sexton ; and they saw in 
the snow traces of small feet, where he had been lingering near 
the room in which she lay before he went to bed. He had a 
fancy, it seemed, that they had left her there alone ; and could 
not bear the thought. 

He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being 
restored to them, just as she used to be. He begged hard to see 
her, saying that he would be very quiet, and that they need not 
fear his being alarmed, for he had sat alone by his young brother 
all day long, when he was dead, and had felt glad to be so near 
him. They let him have his wish ; and, indeed, he kept his word, 
and was in his childish way a lesson to them all. 

Up to that time the old man had not spoken once, — except to 
her, — or stirred from the bedside. But Avhen he saw her little 
favorite, he was moved as they had not seen him yet, and made 
as though he would have him come nearer. Then, pointing to 
the bed, he burst into tears for the first time ; and they who stood 
by, knowing that the sight of this child had done him good, left 
them alone toa'ether. 



728 DICKENS. 

Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child persuader 
him to take some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired 
him. And when the day came on which must remove her in hei 
earthly shape from earthly eyes forever, he led him away, that he 
might not know when she Avas taken from him. They were to 
gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed. 

And now the bell — the bell she had so often heard by night 
and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living 
voice — rung its remorseless toll for her, so young, so beautiful, so 
good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and 
helpless infancy, poured forth — on crutches, in the pride of 
strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere 
dawn of life — to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, 
whose eyes were dim and senses failing, — grandmothers, who 
might have died ten years ago, and still been old, — the deaf, the 
blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and 
forms, — to see the closing of that early grave. 

Along the crowded path they bore her now, — pure as the newly- 
fallen snow that covered it, — whose day on earth had been as 
fleeting. Under that j^orch, where she had sat when Heaven in 
its mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, she passed again, and 
the old church received her in its quiet shade. 

They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and 
many a time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the 
pavement. The light streamed on it through the colored win- 
dow,^a window where the boughs of trees were ever rustling 
in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. 
\yith every breath of air that stirred among those branches in 
the sunshine, some trembling, changing light would fall upon 
her grave. 

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Many a young 
hand dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. 
Some — and they were not a few — knelt down. All were sincere 
and truthful in their sorrow. 

The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers 
closed round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone 
should be replaced. One called to mind how he had seen her 
sitting on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her 
lap, and she Avas gazing with a pensive face upon the sky. 
Another told how he had wondered much that one so delicate as 
she should be so bold ; hoAV she had never feared to enter the 
church alone at night, but had loved to linger there when all 
was quiet ; and even to climb the tower-stair, with no more light 
than that of the moon-rays stealing through the loop-holes in the 
thick old wall. A whisper w^ent about among the oldest there 
that she had seen and talked with angels ; and Avhen they called 
to mind how she had looked and spoken, and her early death, 



DICKENS. 729 

some thought it might be so, indeed. Thus, coming to the grave 
in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to others, 
and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the church 
was cleared in time of all but the sexton and the mourning 
friends. 

They saw the vault covered and the stone fixed down. Then, 
when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed 
the sacred stillness of the place, — when the bright moon poured 
in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, 
and, most of all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave, — in 
that calm time, when all outward things and inward thoughts 
teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears 
are humbled in the dust before them, — then, with tranquil and 
submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with God. 

VIRTUES OF THE POOR. 

Cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it is 
very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the 
rich ; and the good that is in them shines the brighter for it. In 
many a noble mansion lives a man, the best of husbands and of 
fathers, whose private worth in both capacities is justly lauded to 
the skies. But bring him here, upon this crowded deck. Strip 
from his fair young wife her silken dress and jewels ; unbind her 
braided hair ; stamp early wrinkles on her brow ; pinch her pale 
cheek with care and much privation ; array her faded form in 
coarsely-patched attire; let there be nothing but his love to set 
her forth or deck her out ; — and you shall put him to the proof 
indeed. To change his station in the world, that he shall see in 
those young things that climb about his knee, not records of his 
wealth and name, but little wrestlers with him for his daily 
bread, so many poachers on his scanty meal, so many units to 
divide his every sum of comfort and farther to reduce its small 
amount. In lieu of the endearments of childhood in its sweetest 
aspect, heap upon him all its pains and wants, its sicknesses and 
ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and querulous endurance; let its 
prattle be not of engaging infant fancies, but of cold and thirst 
and hunger ; and if his fatherly affection outlive all this, and he 
be patient, watchful, tender, — careful of his children's lives, and 
mindful always of their joys and sorrows, — then send him back 
to parliament and pulpit and quarter-sessions, and when he hears 
fine talk of the depravity of those who live from hand to mouth, 
and labor hard to do it, let him speak up, as one who knows, and 
tell those holders-forth that they, by parallel with such a class, 
should be high angels in their daily lives, and lay but humble 
siege to heaven at last. Which of us shall say what he would 
be, if such realities, with small relief or change all through his 



730 



MAC KAY. 



days, were his? Looking round upon these people, far from 
home, houseless, indigent, wandering, weary with travel and 
hard-living, and seeing how they tended their young children, — 
hoAv they consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied 
their own, — what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women 
were, — how the men profited by their examjDle, — and how very, 
very seldom even a moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke 
out among them, — I felt a stronger love and honor of my kind 
come glowing on my heart, and wished to God there had been 
many atheists in the better part of human nature there, to read 
with me the simple lesson in the book of life. 



CHARLES 3IACKAY, 18 U 

Chakles Mackay, a very spirited and popular poet of his day, was born at 
Perth, Scotland, in 1814. He fitted himself for the bar, and practised a short 
time J but his love of literature predominated over "briefs" and "forms,"' and 
he became an author by profession. In 1834 he published a small volume of 
poems, which was the means of his being introduced to the editor of the 
Morning Chronicle, and he soon became connected with that paper, and con- 
tinued in that position for nine years. In 1844 he became editor of the Glan- 
gow A7'gus; and in 1846 the university of that city conferred upon him the title 
of Doctor of Laws. 

Dr. Mackay's chief prose works are — Longheard, Lord of London, a romance j 
The Thames and its Tributaries ; Popular Delusions ; and The Scenery and Poetry 
of the English Lakes. He wrote also many excellent articles in Chambers's 
Journal; and in 1847 succeeded to the political editorship of the Illustrated 
London Neios. His poetical works are — The Hope of the World; Egeria, the 
Spirit of Nature; Salamandrine, or Love and Immortality ; Legends of the Isles, 
and other Poems; Voices from the Mountains; Town Lyrics; and Voices from the 
Crowd. 

Dr. Mackay is empliatically the lyric poet of progress. He writes with great 
animation and deep feeling; and no one can fail to see that he has a true heart, 
a deeply philanthropic spirit, and a firm faith in the ultimate hapi^iness of the 
race, — in the reign of universal love.^ 



1 Thus I wrote in 1854, and, I think, with 
truth ; for Dr. Macliay njight be called, up to 
the year 1862, the lyric poet of progress. But, 
alas, that the bright fame of his former years 
should be so overclouded in the latter part of 
his life! In that year he was sent by the pro- 
prietors of the London Times, as its cor- 
respondent, to our country ; and thencefor- 
ward he might be more justly styled t\\<i prose- 
ivriter of regress; for his letters to that in- 
fluential journal not only showed his strong 
sympathies with the rebel slaveholders in 
their diabolical attem])t to destroy our govern- 
ment, but he often wiote what he must have 
known to be false, to abet tlieir caus^;. For 
this he was severely castigated by a few Eng- 



lish papers who were " faitliful found among 
the faithless;" such as the London Daily 
News, the 3loming Star, the Northern Whig, 
&c. See also an article in the New York Even- 
ing Post, October 3, 1862, headed " A Palpable 
Forgery." In the Morning Star of October 21, 
1862, appeared the following admirable parody 
on his "Good Time Coming;" severe, indeed, 
but richly deserved. 

A VOICE FROM THE CROWD. 

Dedicated to Charles Maclean, LL.D., " Times'* 
Special Correspondent in America. 

Tliere's a good time coming, boys, 
A good time coming : 



MACKAY. 



731 



THE GOOD TIME C03IING. 



There's a good time coming, boys, 

A good time coming : 
We may not live to see the day, 
But earth shall glisten in the ray 

Of the good time coming. 
Cannon-balls may aid the truth, 

But thought's a weapon stronger ; 
We'll win our battle by its aid; — 

Wait a little longer. 

There's a good time coming, boys, 

A good time coming : 
The pen shall supersede the sword, 
And Right, not Might, shall be the lord. 

In the good time coming. 
Worth, not Birth, shall rule mankind. 

And be acknowledged stronger ; 
The proper impulse has been given ; — 

Wait a little longer. 

There's a good time coming, boys, 

A good time coming : 
War in all men's eyes shall be 
A monster of iniquity 

In the good time coming. • 

Nations shall not quarrel O^en, 

To prove which is the stronger ; 
Nor slaughter men for glory's sake; — 

Wait a little longer. 



There's a good time coming, boys, 

A good time coming : 
Hateful rivalries of creed 
Shall not make their martyrs bleed 

In the good time coming. 
Religion shall be shorn of pride, 

And flourish all the stronger ; 
And Charity shall trim her lamp;— 

Wait a little longer. 

There's a good time coming, boys, 

A good time coming: 
The people shall be temperate, 
And shall love instead of hate. 

In the good time coming. 
They shall use, and not abuse. 

And make all virtue stronger ; 
The reformation has begun ; — 

Wait a little longer. 

There's a good time coming, boys, 

A good time coming : 
Let us aid it all we can. 
Every woman, every man. 

The good time coming. 
Smallest helps, if rightly given, 

Make the impulse stronger ; 
'Twill be strong enough one day ; — 

Wait a little longer. 



THE WATCHER ON THE TOWER. 

" What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower ? 
Is the day breaking? comes the wish'd-for hour? 
Tell us the signs, and stretcli abroad thy hand, 
If the bright morning dawns upon the land." 

" The stars are clear above me, scarcely one 
Has dimm'd its rays in reverence to the sun ; 



We now may see the dawning ray 
That ushers in the natal day 

Of the good time coming. 
Cannons thunder out the news ; 

Their iron throats are stronger ; 
Falsehood takes the place of truth ; — 

Wait a little longer. 

There's a good time coming, boys, 

A good time coming: 
The Northern fanatics shall wail 
When Southern views alone prevail, 

In the good time coming. 
The lash, not love, shall rule mankind, 

And be acknowledged stronger ; 
Away with abolition cant! — 

Wait a little longer. 

There's a good time coming, boys, 
A good time coming : 



Freedom in men's ej'es shall be 
A monster of iniquity, 

In the good time coming. 
Bondmen ! cease to live in hope. 

Your fetters shall be stronger; 
Pile high the heaps of Northern slain, 

And wait a little longer. 

There's a good time coming, boys, 

A good time coming: 
When the Slave Confederacy 
Recognized by all sliall be 

In tlie good time coming. 
Let us aid it all we can. 
Correspondents, — every man, 

To make the impulse stronger; 
We ghall well rewarded be 
For our grand apostasy; — 

Wait a little longer. 



732 MAC KAY. 

But yet I see on the horizon's verge 

Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge." 

" And is that all, O watcher on the tower ? 
Look forth again ; it must be near the hour. 
Dost thou not see the snowy mountain copes. 
And the green woods beneath them on the slopes ?" 

" A mist envelops them ; I cannot trace 

Their outline ; but the day comes on apace. 

The clouds roll up in gold and amber flakes, 

And all the stars grow dim. The morning breaks." 

*• We thank thee, lonely watcher on the tower; 
But look again ; and tell us, hour by hour, 
All thou beholdest ; many of us die 
Ere the day comes ; oh, give them a reply !" 

" I hope, but cannot tell. I hear a song. 
Vivid as day itself, and clear and strong, 
As of a lark — young prophet of the noon — 
Pouring in sunlight his seraphic tune." 

" What doth he say, O watcher on the tower ? 
Is he a prophet ? Doth the dawning hour 
Inspire his music ? Is his chant sublime 
Fill'd with the glories of the Future time ?" 

" He prophesies ; — his heart i^ full ; — his lay 
Tells of the brightness of a peaceful day, — 
A day not cloudless, nor devoid of storm. 
But sunny for the most, and clear and warm." 

" We thank thee, watcher on the lonely tower, 
For all thou tellest. Sings he of an hour 
When Error shall decay, and Truth grow strong. 
And Eight shall rule supreme and vanquish Wrong ?" 

" He sings of Brotherhood, and joy and peace, 
Of days when jealousies and hate shall cease ; 
When war shall die, and man's progressive mind 
Soar as unfetter'd as its God design'd." 

" Well done ! thou watcher on the lonely tower ! 
Is the day breaking? dawns the happy hour? 
We pine to see it : — tell us, yet again. 
If the broad daylight breaks upon the plain." 

" It breaks, — it comes, — the misty shadows fly : — 
A rosy radiance gleams upon the sky ; 
The rnountain-tops reflect it calm and clear ; 
The plain is yet in shade, hut day is wear." 

THE THREE PREACHERS. 



There are three preachers, ever preach- 
ing. 

Fill'd with eloquence and power. 
One is old, with locks of white. 
Skinny as an anchorite ; 

And he preaches every hour 



With a shrill fanatic voice. 
And a bigot's fiery scorn : — 

"Backward! ye presumptuous na- 
Man to misery is born I [tions ; 

Born to drudge, and sweat, and sufler, — 
Born to labor and to pray ; 



BUSKIN. 



733 



Backward! ye presumptuous nations, 
Back ! be humble and obey !" 

The second is a milder preacher ; 

Soft he talks, as if he sung ; 
Sleek and slothful is his look, 
And his words, as from a book, 

Issue glibly from his tongue. 
With an air of self-content, 

High he lifts his fair white hands: 
"Stand ye still! ye restless nations; 

And be liajipy, all ye lands ! 
Fate is law, and law is perfect; 

If ye meddle, ye will mar ; 
Change is rash, and ever was so : 

We are happy as we are." 

Mightier is the younger preaclier ; 

Genius flashes from his eyes : 
And the crowds who hear his voice 
Give him, while their souls rejoice, 

Throbbing bosoms for replies. 
Awed they listen, yet elated, 

While his stirring accents fall : — 
"Forward! ye deluded nations, 

Progress is the rule of all : 
Man was made for healthful effort; 

Tyranny has crush'd him long ; 
He shall march from good to better, 

And do battle with the wrong. 

" Standing still is childish folly. 
Going backward is a crime ; 

None should patiently endure 

Any ill that he can cure : — 

Onward ! keep the march of Time. 



Onward ! while a wrong remains 

To be conquer'd by the right ; 
While Oj)pression lifts a finger 

To aflront us by his might ; 
While an error clouds the reason 

Of the universal heart, 
Or a slave awaits his freedom, 

Action is the wise man's part. 

" Lo ! the world is rich in blessings, — 

Earth and Ocean, Flame and Wind, 
Have unnuniber'd secrets still. 
To be ransack'd when you will, 

For the service of mankind ; 
Science is a child as yet, 

And her power and scope shall grow, 
And her triumphs in the future 

Shall diminish toil and woe, — 
Shall extend the bounds of pleasure 

With an ever-widening ken, 
And of woods and wildernesses 

Make the homes of happy men. 

" Onward ! — there are ills to conquer ; 

Daily wickedness is wrought. 
Tyranny is swoll'n with Pride, 
Bigotry is deified. 

Error intertwined Avith Thought, 
Vice and Misery ramp and crawl ; 

Root them out, their day has pass'd : 
Goodness is alone immortal ; 

Evil was not made to last : — 
Onward ! and all Earth shall aid us 

Ere our peaceful flag be furl'd." 
And the preaching of this preacher 

Stirs the pulses of the world. 



JORJSr RUSKIN, 18 U- 



John Ruskin, the eminent art-critic, was born in Edinburgh, in 1814. After 
completing his university education at Oxford, where he carried off the New- 
digate prize for an English poem, he devoted himself to the cultivation of 
the pictorial art. Conceiving a high admiration for Turner, the artist, and 
deeming him entitled to a higher place in public estimation than was con- 
ceded to him, Ruskin published a pamphlet in his praise, which ultimately ex- 
panded into a treatise, entitled Modern Painters: their Superiority in the Art of 
Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters, 1848; which, though combated 
by bitter asperity, at once secured for its author a high position as a man of 
genius. This was followed in 1849 by The Seven Lamps of Architecture; and 
this by the Seven Stones of Venice, in three volumes, in 1851-53,1 — both show- 



1 " The Stories nf Venice probably satisfied few I as a poetic rhapsody on the fallen city it was 
who took it up as an architectural work ; but | siugulai'ly interesting, — full of thought aiid 

62 



734 



BUS KIN. 



ing his love for old Gothic architecture. Succeeding these were Lectures on 
Architecture and Painting, 1854; and pamphlets on Drawing and Perspective, on 
The Co7istruction of 8hee2:>- Folds, ^ on Pre-Raphaelitism, on The Exhibitions of the 
Royal Academy, on The Opening of the Crystal Palace. He has also written a 
series of papers in the Cornhill, upon The Relations of Employers and Emjoloyed,"^ 
under the title Unto this Last. His latest works are — Ethics of the Dust,^ and 
Sesame and Lilies,'^ 1855 and 1856. In 1861 he made a Selection from his 
writings ; and I know of no volume more full of beauty, interest, and instruc- 
tion. It should be in every household. 

TYRE, VENICE, AND ENGLAND. 

Since first the dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, 
three thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its 
sands, — the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the first 
of these great powers only the memory remains ; of the second, 
the ruin ; the third, which inherits their greatness, if it forget 
their example, may be led through prouder eminence to less 
p)itied destruction. 

The exaltation, the sin, and the punishment of Tyre have been 
recorded for us, in perhaps the most touching words ever uttered 
by the prophets of Israel against the cities of the stranger. But 
w^e read them as a lovely song, and close our ear to the sternness 
of their warning ; for the very depth of the fall of Tyre has blinded 
us to its reality, and we forget, as we watch the bleaching of the 
rocks between the sunshine and the sea, that they were once, " as 
in Eden, the garden of God." Her successor, like her in per- 
fection of beauty, though less in endurance of dominion, is still 
left for our beholding in the final period of her decline : a ghost 
upon the sands of the sea, so weak, so quiet, so bereft of all but 



fancy and rich poetic description ; abounding 
in eloquent niuf^ing and impassioned declama- 
tion, in admirable delineations of the ancient 
glory and hopeless ruin, of the historic asso- 
ciations and pictorial wealth, of Venice." — 
Engligh Ciidopivdia. 

1 By which he means the Discipline of the 
Church. 

2 "TraA-elliug of late into the less flowery 
fields of Political Economy, he has lost his 
way, and has written things (papers in the 
Cornhill, chiefly) which are not likely to add 
to his fame as a writer, or his character as a 
man of common sense." — Collier. Says the 
Christian Examiner, New York, November, 
18C5, — "We have been in years past among 
the warmest of Mr. Ruskin's admirers ; and, 
so long as he was content to be simply a 
writer upon Art and a critic of artists, no 
one could be more ready than we to acknow- 
ledge the wonderful vigor and eloquence of 
his writings, the purity of his taste, and the 
courage and power with which he attacked 
vulgarity and pretence in all their forms. 
But, in an evil hour, Mr. Ruskiu conceived 
the notion that he might become a political 



economist; he who, among all English men 
of letters, is, beyond doubt, the one most en- 
tirely governed by the impulse and passion of 
the moment, deliberately abandoned the field 
in which, by common consent, he had gained 
the first position, to enter upon the discussion 
of those questions which, more than all others, 
demand the cool judgment, the patient and 
passionless reflection, and the life-long pre- 
paratory study, which only men precisely his 
opposite in temperament and mental habit 
can give. We might adopt his own language, 
and say, ' Such a change is not merely a Fall, 
it is a Catastrophe.' " 

3 " Ten Lectures to Little Housewives." 
* This consists of two Lectures : — first, of 
Kinqs' Treasures; second, of Queens' Gardens: 
by the former he means the treasures of know- 
ledge stored in well-chosen libraries, to the 
doors of which he would say, Se.same, "open;" 
and in the latter he considers the position 
and influence of women, and the influence they 
should have in the household, in society, and 
in the world, and the education which would 
best fit them for their duties. 



RUSKIN. 735 

her loveliness, that we might well doubt, as we watched her faint 
reflection in the mirage of the lagoon, which was the city and 
which the shadow. 

TEUTH, 

There are some faults slight in the sight of love, some errors 
slight in the estimation of wisdom ; but truth forgives no insult 
and endures no stain. We do not enough consider this, nor. 
enough dread the slight and continual occasions of offence against 
her. We are too much in the habit of looking at falsehood in 
its darkest associations and through the color of its worst pur- 
poses. That indignation which we profess to feel at deceit abso- 
lute, is indeed only at deceit malicious. We resent calumny, 
hypocrisy, and treachery because they harm us, not because they 
are untrue. Take the detraction and the mischief from the un- 
truth, and we are little offended by it ; turn it into praise, and 
we may be pleased with it. And yet it is not calumny nor 
treachery that does the largest sum of mischief in the world : 
they are continually crushed, and are felt only in being con- 
quered. But it is the glistening and softly-spoken lie, the amiable 
fallacy, the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the 
politician, the zealous lie of the partisan, the merciful lie of the 
friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that 
black mystery over humanity, through which any man who 
pierces, we thank as we would thank one who dug a well in a 
desert ; happy in that the thirst for truth remains with us, even 
when we have wilfully left the fountains of it. 

GOD'S REWARDS, GREAT REWARDS. 

While the first-fruits of his possessions were required from the 
Israelite as a testimony of fidelity, the payment of those first- 
fruits was nevertheless rewarded, and that connectedly and spe- 
cifically, by the increase' of those possessions. Wealth, and length 
of days, and peace, were the promised and experienced rewards of 
his offering, though they were not the objects of it. The tithe 
paid into the storehouse was the express condition of the blessiuL' 
which there should not be room enough to I'cceive. And it will 
be thus always : God never forgets any work or labor of love ; 
and whatever it may be of which the first and best portions or 
powers have been presented to Him, he will multiply and in- 
crease sevenfold. 

THE FIELDS. 

Consider what we owe merely to the meadow grass, to the 
covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the 
companies of those soft and countless and peaceful spears. The 



736 EUSKIN. 

fields ! Follow but forth for a little time the thoughts of all that 
we ought to recognize in those words. All spring and summer is 
in them, — the walks by silent, scented paths, — the rests in noon- 
day heat, — the joy of herds and flocks, — the power of all shep- 
herd life and meditation, — the life of sunlight upon the world, 
falling in emerald streaks, and falling in soft blue shadoAvs, where 
else it would have struck upon the dark mould or scorching dust, 
— pastures beside the pacing brooks, — soft banks and knolls of 
lowly hills, — thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line 
of lifted sea, — crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in 
evening warmth of barred sunshine,, dinted by happy feet, and 
softening in their fall the sound of loving voices : — all these are 
summed in those simple words ; and these are not all. We may 
not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift, in our 
own land ; though still, as we think of it longer, the infinite of 
that meadow sweetness, Shakspeare's peculiar joy, would open 
on us more and more, yet we have it but in part. Go out, in the 
spring-time, among the meadows that slope from the shores of the 
Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled 
with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass grows 
deep and free ; and, as you follow the winding mountain-paths, be- 
neath arching boughs ail veiled and dim with blossom, — paths that 
forever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweep- 
ing down, in scented undulation, steep to the blue water, studded 
here and there with new-mown heaps, filling all the air with 
fainter sweetness, — look up towards the higher hills, where the 
waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets 
among the shadows of the pines ; and we may, perhaps, at last 
know^ the meaning of those quiet words of the one-hundred-and- 
forty seventh Psalm, — " He maketh grass to grow upon the 
mountains." 

There are also several lessons symbolically connected with this 
subject, which we must not allow to escape us. Observe, the 
peculiar characters of the grass which adapt it especially for the 
service of man are its apparent humility and cheerfulness: — its 
humility, in that it seems created only for lowest service, — ap- 
pointed to be trodden on and fed upon ; its cheerfulness, in that 
it seems to exult under all kinds of violence and suffering. You 
roll it, and it is stronger the next day ; you mow it, and it multi- 
plies its shoots, as if it were grateful ; you tread upon it, and it 
only sends up richer perfume. Spring comes, and it rejoices with 
all the earth, — glowing with variegated flame of flowers, Avaving 
in soft depth of fruitful strength. Winter comes ; and, though it 
will not mock its fellow-plants by growing then, it Avill not pine 
and mourn, and turn colorless or leafless as they. It is always 
green ; and it is only the brighter and gayer for the hoar-frost. 



EUSKIN. 737 



THE SKY. 



It is a strange thing how little in general people know about 
the sky. It is the i)art of creation in which Nature has done 
more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident 
purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other 
of her works ; and it is just the part in which we least attend to 
her. There is not a moment of any day of our lives when nature 
is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory 
after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant 
principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is 
all done for us and intended for our perpetual pleasure. And 
every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources of 
interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The 
noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few : 
it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of 
them; he injures them by his presence, he ceases to feel them if 
he be always with them. But the sky is for all : bright as it is, 
it is not " too bright nor good for human nature's daily food ;" it 
is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exalt- 
,ing of the heart, for the soothing and purifying it from its dross 
and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes 
awful, never the same for two moments together, almost human 
in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in 
its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us is as distinct as 
its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is 
essential. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a 
subject of thought ; but, as it has to do with our animal sensa- 
tions, we look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly 
than to brutes, upon all which bears witness to the intention of 
the Supreme, that we are to receive more from the covering 
vault than the light and the dew which we share with the weed 
and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and monoto- 
nous accidents, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment 
of watchfulness or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of 
utter idleness and insipidity we turn to the sky as a last resource, 
which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says it has been 
wet, and another, it has been windy, and another, it has been 
warm. Who among the Avhole chattering crowd can tell me of 
the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains 
that girded the horizon at noon vesterday? Who saw the narrow 
sunbeam that came out of the south, and smote upon their summits 
until they melted and mouldered away into a dust of blue rain ? 
Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left 
them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like 
withered leaves? All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or, if 
the apathy be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by 

62« 



738 RUSKIN. 

what is gross or what is extraordinary. And yet it is not in the 
broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, not in 
the clash of the hail nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the 
highest characters of the sublime are developed. God is not in 
the earthquake nor in the fire, but in the still small voice. They 
are but the blind and the low faculties of our nature, which can 
only be addressed through lampblack and lightning. It is in 
quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, — the deep 
and the calm and the perpetual, — that which must be sought ere 
it is seen, and loved ere it is understood, — things which the angels 
work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally, which are never 
wanting and never repeated, which are to be found always, yet 
each one found but once ; — it is through these that the lesson of 
devotion is chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given. 

INTERPRETATION OF THE TERM " GENTLEMAN." 

Two great errors, coloring, or, rather, discoloring, severally, the 
minds of the higher and lower classes, have sown wide dissension 
and wider misfortune through the society of modern days. These 
errors are in our modes of interpreting the word " gentleman." 

Its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is, " a man of pure 
race," well bred, in the sense that a horse or dog is well bred. 

The so-called higher classes, being generally of purer race than 
the lower, have retained the true idea and the convictions asso- 
ciated with it, but are afraid to speak it out, and equivocate about 
it in public ; this equivocation mainly proceeding from their de- 
sire to connect another meaning with it, and a false one, — that of 
" a man living in idleness on other people's labor," — with which 
idea the term has nothing whatever to do. 

The lower classes, denying vigorously, and with reason, the 
notion that a gentleman means an idler, and rightly feeling that 
the more any one works the more of a gentleman he becomes and 
is likely to become, have nevertheless got little of the good they 
otherwise might from the truth, because with it they wanted to 
hold a falsehood, — namely, that race was of no consequence : it 
being precisely of as much consequence in man as in any other 
animal. 

The nation cannot truly prosper till both these errors are 
finally got quit of. Gentlemen have to learn that it is no part 
of their duty or privilege to live on other people's toil. They 
have to learn that there is no degradation in the hardest manual 
or the humblest servile labor when it is honest ; but that there is 
degradation, and that deep, in extravagance, in bribery, in indo- 
lence, in pride, in taking places they are not fit for, or in coining 
places for which there is no need. It does not disgrace a gentle- 
man to become an errand-boy or a day-laborer, but it disgraces 



LAYARD. 739 

him much to become a knave or a thief; and knavery is not the 
less knavery because it involves large interests, nor theft the less 
theft because it is countenanced by usage or accompanied by 
failure in undertaken duty. It is an incomparably less guilty 
form of robbery to cut a purse out of a man's pocket, than to 
take it out of his hand on the understanding you are to steer his 
ship up the channel when you do not know the soundings. 

On the other hand, the lower orders, and all orders, fiave to 
learn that every vicious liabit and chronic disease communicates 
itself by descent ; and that by purity of birth the entire system 
of the human body and soul may be gradually elevated, or, by 
recklessness of birth, degraded, until there shall be as much dif- 
ference between the well-bred and ill-bred human creature (what- 
ever pains be taken with their education) as between a wolf- 
hound and the vilest mongrel cur. And the knowledge of this 
great fact ought to regulate the education of our youth and the 
entire conduct of the nation. 



AUSTIN HENRY LAYARD, 1817 

This famous traveller, born March 5, 1817, is descended from a family of 
French Protestants, driven from their country by the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes. It was intended that he should study for the law; but his inherent 
love of adventure prevailed, and in 1839 he set out on a continental tour. Sub- 
sequently he travelled through various parts of Asia, learned the Arabic and 
Persian languages, and determined to explore those spots believed to have been 
the sites of ancient cities. In 1845 he began his excavations at Mosul, the site 
of ancient Nineveh, and at Nimroud of Babylon; and succeeded in exhuming 
numerous wonderful specimens of Assyrian art, which are so full of interest to 
the antiquarian and the student of sacred history.^ The results of his dis- 
coveries were published in 1849, in two volumes, entitled Niiieveh and its Re~ 
mains, — discoveries, perhaps, the most interesting and important of any made 
in modern times. Mr. Layard has been elected two or three times to Parlia- 
ment, and in 1861 was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 

DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT LIONS AT NIMROUD. 

On reaching the ruins, I descended into the new trench, and 
found the workmen — who had already seen me as I approached 
—standing near a heap of baskets and cloaks. Whilst Awad'' 
advanced and asked for a present to celebrate the occasion, the 
Arabs withdrew the screen they had hastily constructed, and 
disclosed an enormous human head sculiDtured in full out of the 

1 Many of these now enrich the British Mu- I 2 Chief of a small Arab tribe, and the host 
seum ; and some may be seen at WiUiamstown | of Mr. Layard. 
College, Massachusetts. 



740 LA YARD. 

alabaster of the country. They had uncovered the upper part of 
a figure, the remainder of which was still buried in the earth. 
I saw at once that the head must belong to a winged lion or bull, 
similar to those of Khorsabad and Persepolis. It was in ad- 
mirable preservation. The expression was calm, yet majestic, 
and the outline of the features showed a freedom and knowledge 
of art scarcely to be looked for in the works of so remote a period. 
The cap had three horns, and, unlike that of the human-headed 
bulls hitherto found in Assyria, was rounded and without orna- 
ment at the top. 

I was not surprised that the Arabs had been amazed and 
terrified at this apparition. It required no stretch of the imagina- 
tion to conjure up the most strange fancies. This gigantic head, 
blanched with age, thus rising from the bowels of the earth, 
might well have belonged to one of those fearful beings which 
are pictured in the traditions of the country as appearing to 
mortals slowly ascending from the regions below. One of the 
workmen, on catching the first glimpse of the monster, had 
thrown down his basket and run off towards Mosul as fast as his 
legs could carry him. I learned this Avith regret, as I anticipated 
the consequences. * * * 

I ascertained by the end of March the existence of a second 
pair of winged human-headed lions, diftering from those pre- 
viously discovered in form, the human shape being continued to 
the waist, and furnished with arms. In one hand each figure 
carried a goat or stag, and in the other, which hung down by the 
side, a branch w4th three flowers. They formed a northern 
entrance into the chamber of which the lions previously described 
were the southern portal. I completely uncovered the latter, 
and found them to be entire. They were about twelve feet in 
height and the same number in length. The body and limbs 
were admirably portrayed ; the muscles and bones, although 
strongly developed, to display the strength of the animal, showed 
at the same time a correct knowledge of its anatomy and form. 
Expanded wings sprung from the shoulder and spread over the 
back ; a knotted girdle, ending in tassels, encircled the loins. 
These sculptures, forming an entrance, were partly in full and 
partly in relief. The head and fore-part, facing the chamber, 
were in full ; but only one side of the rest of the slab was sculp- 
tured, the back being placed against the wall of sun-dried bricks. 
That the spectator might have both a perfect front and side view 
of the figures, they were furnished with five legs ; two were carved 
no the end of the slab to face the chamber, and three on the side. 
The relief of the body and three limbs aatis high and bold, and 
the slab was covered, in all parts not occupied by the image, with 
inscriptions in the cuneiform character. These magnificent speci- 
mens of Assyrian art were in perfect preservation ; the most 



LA YARD. 741 

minute lines in the details of the wings and in the ornaments had 
been retained with their original fret^hncss. Not a character was 
wanting in the inscriptions. 

I used to contemplate for hours these mysterious emblems, and 
muse over their intent and history. What more noble forms 
could have ushered the people into the temple of their gods? 
What more sublime images could have been borrowed from 
nature by men who sought, unaided by the light of revealed reli- 
gion, to embody their conception of the wisdom, power, and 
ubiquity of a Supreme Being ? They could find no better type 
of intellect and knowledge than the head of the man ; of strength, 
than the body of the lion ; of rapidity of motion, than the wings 
of the bird. These winged human-headed lions were not idle 
creations, the offspring of mere fancy : their meaning was written 
upon them. They had awed and instructed races which flourished 
three thousand years ago. Through the portals which they 
guarded, kings, priests, and warriors had borne sacrifices to their 
altars, long before the wisdom of the East had penetrated to 
Greece and had furnished its mythology with symbols long re- 
cognized by the Assyrian votaries. They may have been buried, 
and their existence may have been unknown, before the founda- 
tion of the eternal city. For twenty -five centuries they had been 
hidden from the eye of man, and now they stood forth once more 
in their ancient majesty. But how changed was the scene 
around them ! The luxury and civilization of a mighty nation 
had given place to the wretchedness and ignorance of a few half- 
barbarous tribes. The wealth of temples and the riches of great 
cities had been succeeded by ruins and shapeless heaps of earth. 
Above the spacious hall in which they stood, the plough had 
passed and the corn now waved. Egypt has monuments no less 
ancient and no less wonderful ; but they have stood forth for 
ages to testify her early power and renown ; w^hilst those before 
me had but now appeared to bear witness, in the words of the 
prophet, that once " the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with 
fair branches and with a shadowing shroud of an high stature ; 
and his top was among the thick boughs * * * his height 
was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were 
multiplied ; and his branches became long, because of the multi- 
tude of waters when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made 
their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the 
beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow 
dwelt all great nations ;" for now is " Nineveh a desolation and 
dry like a wilderness, and flocks lie down in the midst of her : 
all the beasts of the nations, both the cormorant and the bittern, 
lodge in the upper lintels of it ; their voice sings in the windows ; 
and desolation is in the thresholds."^ 

1 Ezek. xxxi. 3, «fcc. ; Zepli. ii. 13, 14. 



742 ELIZA COOK. 



ELIZA COOK. 18 1\ 



Eliza Cook^ the daughter of a respectable tradesman in the borough of South- 
wark, was born in the year 1817. She very early gave manifestations of poetic 
talent, which were warmly encouraged by a sympathizing mother. Her first 
writings she gave to the public before she was twenty years of age, sending 
anonymously a 8ong to the Dispatch newspaper, with which the editor was so 
much pleased that he noticed it in very commendatory terms, and requested 
more from the same writer. After this, she sent a poem, each, to the Literary 
Gazette, the Metropolitan, and the Neio Monthly, and was written to by each of 
the respective editors, who, from the style of her writings, judged her to be one 
of their own sex. Indeed, the editor of the Literary Gazette praised them as 
the productions of a gentleman who reminded him of "the style and power 
of Robert Burns." 

Her deep love for her mother is one of the prominent features of Miss Cook's 
character, which closely links itself with her own inner life. The holy breath- 
ings of filial love, the devotion, reverence, and gratitude with which she 
breathes a name so hallowed, and embodies the recollection of one so dear to 
her heart, form one of the most delightful traits of her poetry. These may be 
Been in the "Stanzas to a Bereaved One," "Mother, Come Back," and in the 
touching verses of 

THE OLD ARM-CHAIR. 

I love it ! I love it ! and who shall dare 

To chide me for loving that old arm-chair ? 

I've treasured it long as a sainted prize, 

I've bedew'd it with tears, and erabalm'd it with sighs ; 

'Tis bound by a tliousand bands to my heart ; 

Not a tie will break, not a link will start. 

Would ye learn the spell ? — a mother sat there, 

And a sacred thing is that old arm-chair. 

In childhood's hour I linger'd near 

The hallow'd seat with listening ear ; 

And gentle words that mother would give, 

To fit me to die and teach me to live : 

She told me shame would never betide 

With truth for my creed and God for my guide ; 

She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer, 

As I knelt beside that old arm-chair. 

I sat and watch'd her many a day, 

AVhen her eye grew dim, and her locks were gray ; 

And I almost worshipp'd her when she smiled, 

And turn'd from her Bible to bless her child. 

Years roll'd on, but the last one sped, — 

My idol was shatter'd, my earth-star fled ; 

I learnt how much the heart can bear, 

When I saw her die in that old arm-chair. 

'Tis past ! 'tis past ! but I gaze on it now 
With quivering breath and throbbing brow : 
'Twas there she nursed me, 'twas there she died : 
And memory flows with lava tide. 



ELIZA COOK, 743 

Say it is folly, and deem me weak, 
While the scalding drops start down ray cheek ; 
But I love it ! I love it ! and cannot tear 
My soul from a mother's old arm-chair. 

Of her works, the story of Melaia, which was published in 1840, is the chief. 
It is an Eastern tale, of the attachment of a dog to his master; and, besides the 
generous tone and kindly teaching of the story, it abounds in fine passages of 
poetic power and noble sentiment. In 1849 she established Eliza Cook's Jour- 
nal, which became one of the most popular and widely circulated periodicals 
in England.! In 1864 she collected all her poems, and published them in one 
volume. 

Miss Cook has built up for herself a name which will long be uttered with 
feelings of love and admiration. The characteristics of her poetry are, great 
freedom, ease, and heartiness of sentiment and expression; and she makes you 
feel at once that her heart is in all she writes, that she gives full utterance to 
the depths of her soul, — a soul that is in sympathy with all that is pure and 
true. She evidently has no regard for conventionalism, but presents, without 
fear, her own actual thoughts, and yet never transcends the limits of taste and 
delicacy. 

THE WOULD. 

Talk who will of the world as a desert of thrall, 

Yet, yet there is bloom on the waste ; 
Though the chalice of Life hath its acid and gall, 

There are honey-drops, too, for the taste. 

We murmur and droop should a sorrow-cloud stay, 

And note all the shades of our lot ; 
But the rich rays of sunshine that brighten our way 

Are bask'd in, enjoy'd, and forgot. 

Those who look on Mortality's ocean aright 

Will not mourn o'er each billow that rolls ; 
But dwell on the beauties, the glories, the might, 

As much as the shipwrecks and shoals. 

How thankless is he who remembers alone 

All the bitter, the drear, and the dark ! 
Though the raven may scare with' its woe-boding tone, 

Do we ne'er hear the song of the larkf 

We may utter farewell when 'tis torture to part; 

But, in meeting the dear one again. 
Have we never rejoiced with that wildness of heart 

Which outbalances ages of pain ? 

Who hath not had moments so laden with bliss, 

When the soul, in its fulness of love. 
Would waver if bidden to choose between this 

And the paradise promised above ? 

1 Her object in establishing it may be ex- I intellectual elevation now going ou, and fling 
pressed in her own words: — •'! am anxious to my energies and will into a cause where my 
give my feeble aid to the gigantic struggle for | heart will zealously animate my duty." 



744 ELIZA COOK. 

Tliougli the eye may be dimm'd with its grief-drop awhile, 

And the whiten'd lip sigh forth its fear, — 
Yet pensive indeed is that face where the smile 

Is not oftener seen than the tear ! 

■X- -x- ^ * -x- 

Then say not the world is a desert of thrall : 

There is bloom, there is light, on the waste ; 
Though the chalice of Life hath its acid and gall, 

There are honey-drops, too, for the taste. 

H03rE IN THE HEART. 

Oh, ask not a home in the mansions of pride, 

AVhere marble shines out in tlie pillars and walls ; 
Though the roof be of gold, it is brilliantly cold, 

And joy may not be found in its torch-lighted halls. 
But seek for a bosom all honest and true. 

Where love, once awaken'd, will never depart ; 
Turn, turn to that breast, like the dove to its nest, 

And you'll find there's no home like a home in the heart. 

Oh, link but one spirit that's warmly sincere. 

That will heighten your pleasure and solace your care ; 
Find a soul you may trust as the kind and the just, 

And be sure the wide world holds no treasure so rare. 
Then the frowns of misfortune may shadow our lot. 

The cheek-searing tear-drops of sorrow may start. 
But a star never dim sheds a halo for him 

Who can turn for rej^ose to a home in the heart. 

NATURE'S GENTLEMAN. 

Whom do we dub as gentleman ?— the knave, the fool, the brute, — 
If they but own full tithe of gold, and wear a costly suit ! 
The parchment scroll of titled line, — the ribbon at the knee, 
Can still suffice to ratify and grant such high degree : 
But Nature, with a matchless hand, sends forth her nobly born. 
And laughs the paltry attributes of wealth and rank to scorn ; 
She moulds with care a spirit rare, half human, half divine, 
And cries, exulting, " Who can make a gentleman like mine ?" 

She may not spend her common skill about the outward part, 
But showers beauty, grace, and light upon the brain and heart ; 
She may not choose ancestral fame his pathway to illume, — 
The sun that sheds the brightest day may rise from mist and gloom ; 
Should fortune pour her welcome store, and useful gold abound. 
He shares it with a bounteous hand, and scatters blessings round ; 
The treasure sent is rightly spent, and serves the end design'd. 
When held by Nature's gentleman, — the good, the just, the kind. 

He turns not from the cheerless home where sorrow's offspring dwell; 

He'll greet the peasant in his hut, — the culprit in his cell ; 

He stays to hear the widow's plaint of deep and mourning love ; 

He seeks to aid her lot below, and prompt her faith above : 

The orphan child, — the friendless one, — the luckless, or the poor, 

Will never meet his spurning frown, or leave his bolted door; 

His kindred circles all mankind, — his country all the globe, — 

An honest name his jewell'd star, and truth his ermine robe. 



FROUDE, 745 

He wisely yields his passions up to reason's firm control ; 
His pleasures are of crimeless kind, and never taint the soul ; 
He may be thrown among the gay and reckless sons of life, 
But will not love the revel scene, or heed the brawling strife. 
He wounds no breast with jeer or jest, yet bears no honey'd tongue; 
He's social with the gray-hair' d one, and merry with the young ; 
He gravely shares the council speech, or joins the rustic game, 
And shines as Nature's gentleman in every place the same. 

No haughty gesture marks his gait, no pompous tone his word, 
No studied attitude is seen, no palling nonsense heard ; 
He'll suit his bearing to the hour, — laugh, listen, learn, or teach, 
With joyous freedom in his mirth, and candor in his speech : 
He worships God with inward zeal, and serves him in each deed ; 
He would not blame another's faith, nor have one martyr bleed ; 
Justice and Mercy form his code, — he puts his trust in Heaven ; 
His prayer is, *' If the heart mean well, may all else be forgiven !" 

Though few of such may gem the earth, yet such rare gems there are, 
Each shining in his hallow'd sphere, as virtue's polar star ; 
Though human hearts too oft are found all gross, corrupt, and dark, 
Yet, yet some bosoms breathe and burn, lit by Promethean spark ; 
There are some spirits nobly just, unwarp'd by pelf or pride, 
Great in the calm, but greater still when dash'd by adverse tide : 
They hold the rank no king can give, no station can disgrace ; 
Nature puts forth her gentlemen, and monarchs must give place. 

THE LOVED ONE WAS NOT THERE. 

We gather'd round the festive board, 

The crackling fagot blazed, 
But few would taste the wine that pour'd, 

Or join the song we raised. 
For there was now a glass unfill'd, — 

A favor'd place to spare ; 
All eyes were dull, all hearts were chill'd, — 

The loved one was not there. 

No happy laugh was heard to ring. 

No form would lead the dance ; 
A smother'd sorrow seem'd to fling 

A gloom in every glance. 
The grave had closed upon a brow, 

The honest, bright, and fair ; 
We miss'd our mate, we mourn'd the blow, — 

The loved one was not there. 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, 1818 

James Anthony Froude, a son of Archdeacon Froude, was born in Devon- 
shire, in 1818, and was educated at Westminster and Oriel College, Oxford, 
where he graduated with high distinction in 1840. He was elected a fellow 
of Exeter College in 1842, and intende^i to enter the church, being one of the 
Newman or Puseyite clique; but he soo» abandoned this purpose, and resolved 

63 



746 



FROUDE. 



upon a literary life. In 1847 he published Shadows of the Clouds; and in 1849, 
Nemesis of Faith} In 1850 he began to write for the Westyninster Review and 
Fraser's Magazine, — chiefly on English History. In 1856 appeared the first two 
volumes of his History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Eliza- 
beth; and since that time six more have been published. No historical work 
that has appeared for some time has commanded more attention ,• both on ac- 
count of the originality of the author's views, of the great vigor and beauty of his 
style (except where he imitates Carlyle), and of the period in English history 
of which he treats, — a period of the deepest interest and of far-reaching in- 
fluence. A part of his design seems to be to reverse the judgments which for 
centuries have been pronounced upon some of the most prominent characters 
of these times, — more especially that upon Henry VIII. The very fact that he 
differs from the generally-received opinion gives an additional interest to his 
writings ; for the public is very apt to say that such dissent is a priori evidence 
of his careful investigations and his sincere desire to arrive at the truth. He 
claims to write chiefly from original materials, — from laws enacted in the 
times, from state documents, and from the correspondence of public men. 
But what dependence can be placed upon such correspondence, the public 
seem to have decided in not acquiescing in the author's conclusions to any 
considerable extent. Still, it is but fair to give him a hearing,^ — audi alteram 
partem, — for he makes out a good case.^ 

CHARACTER OF HENRY VI IT. 

If Henry VIII. had died previous to the first agitation of the 
divorce, his loss would have been deplored as one of the heaviest 
misfortunes which had ever befallen the country ; and he would 
have left a name which would have taken its place in history by 
the side of that of the Black Prince, or of the conqueror of Agin- 
court. Left at the most trying age, with his character unformed, 
with the means at his disposal of gratifying every inclination, 
and married by his ministers, when a boy, to an unattractive 
woman far his senior, he had lived for thirty-six years almost 
without blame, and bore through England the reputation of an 
upright and virtuous king. Nature had been prodigal to him of 
her rarest gifts. In person he is said to have resembled his grand- 
father, Edward IV., who was the handsomest man in Europe. 
His form and bearing were princely ; and, amidst the easy free- 
dom of his address, his manner remained majestic. No knight 
in England could match him in the tournament except the Duke 
of Suffolk ; he drew with ease as strong a bow as was borne by 



1 " This is a sad, sad book : faith and hope 
are poisoned, and charity langnisheth."— 
Christian Examiner. It is said that the senior 
fellow of his college (Exeter) publicly burned 
the book. This is about all the light it has 
shed upon the world. 

2 Mr. Froude has lately become the editor 
of Fraser's Magazine. 

8 " We do not enter into the argument as to 
whether Mr. Froude is right or wrong in his 



conclusions. We have only to say that no 
person has a right to enter into that argu- 
ment till he has read his book. Here is en- 
tirely new material, drawn out from unques- 
tioned archives of the age: and, for the first 
time for three hundred years, we are able to 
take tlie view of affairs M'hich Henry himself 
took, and to hear the justification made fur him 
in advance by the events themselves in which he 
acted." — Christian Examiner, January, 1866. 



FROUDE. 747 

any yeoman of his guard ; and these powers were sustained in un- 
failing vigor by a temperate habit and by constant exercise. Of 
his intellectual ability we are not left to judge from the suspicious 
panegyrics of his contemporaries. His stat^ papers and letters 
may be placed by the side of those of Wolsey or of Cromwell, 
and they lose nothing in the comparison. Though they are 
broadly different, the perception is equally clear, the expression 
equally powerful, and they breathe throughout an irresistible 
vigor of purpose. In addition to this, he had a fine musical 
taste, carefully cultivated ; he spoke and wrote in four languages ; 
and his knowledge of a multitude of other subjects, with which 
his versatile ability made him conversant, would have formed 
the reputation of any ordinary man. He was among the best 
physicians of his age ; he was his own engineer, inventing im- 
provements in artillery, and new constructions in ship-building ; 
and this, not with the condescending incapacity of a royal 
amateur, but with thorough workmanlike understanding. His 
reading was vast, especially in theology. * * * 

In all directions of human activity he displayed natural 
powers of the highest order, at the highest stretch of industrious 
culture. He was attentive, as it is called, to his religious duties, 
being present at the services in chapel two or three times a day 
with unfailing regularity, and showing, to outward appearance, 
a real sense of religious obligation in the energy and purity of his 
life. In private, he was good-humored and good-natured. His 
letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are simple, 
easy, and unrestrained ; and the letters written by them to him 
are similarly plain and business-like, as if the writers knew that 
the person whom they were addressing disliked compliments, and 
chose to be treated as a man. Again, from their correspondence 
with one another, when they describe interviews with him, we 
gather the same pleasant impression. He seems to have been 
always kind, always considerate, inquiring into their private 
concerns with genuine interest, and winning, as a consequence, 
their warm and unaffected attachment. As a ruler he had been 
eminently popular. All his wars had been successful. He had 
the splendid tastes in which the English people most delighted, 
and he had substantially acted out his own theory of his duty. * * 
Like all princes of the Plantagenet blood, he was a person of a 
most intense and imperious will. His impulses, in general nobly 
directed, had never known contradiction ; and late in life, when 
his character was formed, he was forced into collision with difiS- 
culties with which the experience of discipline had not fitted him 
to contend. Education had done much for him ; but his nature 
required more correction than his position had permitted ; whilst 
unbroken prosperity and early independence of control had been 
his most serious misfortune. He had capacity, if his training 



748 FROUDE. 

had been equal to it, to be one of the greatest of men. With all 
his faults about him, he was still, perhaps, the greatest of his 
contemporaries, and the man best able of all living Englishmen 
to govern England, had he not been set to do it by the condition 
of his birth. 

EXECUTION OF SIR THOMAS 31 ORE. 

At daybreak More was awoke by the entrance of Sir Thomas 
Pope, who had come to confirm his anticipations and to tell him 
it was the king's pleasure that k« should suffer at nine o'clock 
that morning. He received the news with utter composure. 
" I am much bounden to the king," he said, " for the benefits and 
honors he has bestowed on me ; and, so help me God ! most of all 
I am bounden to him that it pleaseth his Majesty to rid me so 
shortly out of the miseries of this present world." Pope told him 
the king desired that he would not " use many words on the scaf- 
fold." "Mr. Pope," he answered, "you do well to give me warn- 
ing, for otherwise I had purposed somewhat to have spoken ; but 
no matter wherewith his Grace should have cause to be offended. 
Howbeit, whatever I intended, I shall obey his Highness's com- 
mand." He afterwards discussed the arrangements for his funeral, 
at which he begged that his family might be present ; and, when 
all was settled. Pope rose to leave him. He was an old friend. 
He took More's hand and wrung it, and, quite overcome, burst 
into tears. " Quiet yourself, Mr. Pope," More said, " and be.not 
discomforted ; for I trust we shall once see each other full merrily, 
when we shall live and love together in eternal bliss." 

As soon as he was alone, he dressed in the most elaborate cos- 
tume. It was for the benefit, he said, of the executioner who was 
to do him so great a service.^ Sir William Kingston remon- 
strated, and with some difficulty induced him to put on a plainer 
suit ; but, that his intended liberality should not fail, he sent the 
man a gold angel in compensation, " as a token that he maliced 
him nothing, but rather loved him extremely." " So about nine 
of the clock he was brought by the lieutenant out of the Tower, 
his beard being long, — which fashion he had never before used, — 
his face pale and lean, carrying in his hands a red cross, casting 
his eyes often towards heaven." He had been unpopular as a 
judge, and one or two persons in the crowd were insolent to him ; 
but the distance was short and soon over, as all else was nearly 
over now. 

The scaffold had been awkwardly erected, and shook as he 
placed his foot upon the ladder. " See me safe up," he said to 
Kingston ; " for my coming down I can shift for myself." He 

1 According to custom, the executioner received the clothes which the unhappy victim wore 
on the scaffold. 



ALEXANDER SMITH. 749 

began to speak to the people ; but the sheriff begged him not to 
proceed, and he contented himself with asking for their prayers, 
and desiring them to bear witness for him that he died in the 
faith of the holy Catholic Church, and a faithful servant of God 
and the king. He then repeated the Miserere psalm on his 
knees ; and, when he had ended and had risen, the executioner, 
with an emotion which promised ill for the manner in which his 
part in the tragedy Avould be accomplished, begged his forgive- 
ness. More kissed him. " Thou art to do me the greatest benefit 
that I can receive," he said ; " pluck up thy spirit, man, and be 
not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short ; take heed, 
therefore, that thou strike not awry, for saving of thine honesty." 
The executioner offered to tie his eyes. " I will cover them my- 
self," he said ; and, binding them in a cloth which he had brought 
with him, he knelt and laid his head upon the block. The fatal 
stroke was about to fall, when he signed for a moment's delay 
wdiile he moved aside his beard. " Pity that should be cut," he 
murmured, "that has not committed treason." With which 
strange words, — the strangest, perhaps, ever uttered at such a 
time, — the lips most famous through Europe for eloquence and 
wisdom closed forever. 

" So," concludes his biographer, " with alacrity and spiritual 
joy he received the fatal axe, which no sooner had severed the 
head from the body, but his soul was carried by angels into ever- 
lasting glory, where a crown of martyrdom was placed upon him 
which can never fade nor decay ; and then he found those words 
true which he had often spoken, — that a man may lose his head 
and have no harm." 

This was the execution of Sir Thomas More, — an act which 
sounded out into the far corners of the earth, and was the world's 
wonder, as well for the circumstances under which it was perpe- 
trated, as for the preternatural composure with which it was 
borne. Something of his calmness may have been due to his 
natural temperament, something to an unaffected weariness of a 
world which in his eyes was plunging into the ruin of the latter 
days. But those fair hues of sunny cheerfulness caught their 
color from the simplicity of his faith; and never was there a 
grander Christian victory over death than in that last scene 
lighted with its lambent humor. 



ALEXANDER SMITH, 1830-1867. 

This Scotch writer, who early attained considerable celebrity as a poet, but 
whose later prose writings deserve quite as much commendation, was born in 
Kilmarnock, Scotland, December 31, 1830, and educated at Glasgow. In 1852 
his first work — Life Drama — appeared in the columns of the Critic, and waa 

63* 



750 ALEXANDER SMITH. 

warmly commended in the Eclectic. The next year it was published in Lon- 
don, with other poems, and had a wide circulation in this country as well as 
in England. In 1854, Mr. Smith was appointed Secretary to the University of 
Edinburgh, and soon after delivered a series of lectures, including one on 
"Burns as a National Poet." In 1855, during the Crimean War, he produced 
Sonnets on the War; in 1857, a volume entitled City Foems ; and in 1861, Edwin 
of Deira. In 1863 he published Dreamthorp, a Book of Essays written in the 
Country, which have been deservedly commended for their grace and beauty 
of style and suggestive thought. Indeed, we hardly know a book that affords 
more pleasing reading. His latest work (1866) is A Summer in Skye, — in 
which he gives some very interesting accounts of the primitive and singular 
manners of the inhabitants of that beautiful Scotch island, as well as graphic 
descriptions of its charming scenery. He died January 5, 1867. 

THE LIBRARY— THE GARDEN.'^ 

In my garden I spend my days ; in my library I spend my 
nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my 
books. With the flower I am in the present ; with the book I 
am in the past. I go into my library, and all history unrolls be- 
fore me. I breathe the morning air of the world while the scent 
of Eden's roses yet lingered in it, while it vibrated only to the 
world's first brood of nightingales, and to the laugh of Eve. I 
see the pyramids building ; I hear the shoutings of the armies of 
Alexander ; I feel the ground shake beneath the march of Cam- 
byses. I sit as in a theatre : the stage is time, the play is the 
play of the world. What a spectacle it is ! What kingly pomp ! 
what processions file past ! what cities burn to heaven ! what 
crowds of captives are dragged at the chariot-wheels of con- 
querors ! I hear or cry " Bravo !" when the great actors come on 
shaking the stage. I am a Roman emperor when I look at a 
Roman coin. I lift Homer, and I shout with Achilles in the 
trenches. The silence of the unpeopled Syrian plains, the out- 
comings and ingoings of the patriarchs Abraham and Ishmael, 
Isaac in the fields at even-tide, Rebekah at the well, Jacob's 
guile, Esau's face reddened by desert sun-heat, Joseph's splendid 
funeral procession, — all these things I find within the boards of 
my Old Testament. What a silence in those old books, as of a 
half-peopled world ! — what bleating of flocks ! — what green pas- 
toral rest ! — what indubitable human existence ! Across brawl- 
ing centuries of blood and war I hear the bleating of Abraham's 
flocks, the tinkling of the bells of Rebekah's camels. O men and 
women, so far separated yet so near, so strange yet so well known, 
by what miraculous power do I know ye all ! Books are the true 
Elysian fields where the spirits of the dead converse, and into 
these fields a mortal may venture unappalled. What king's 

1 From Essay XI., entitled Boohs and Gardens, 



ALEXANDER SMITH. 7.51 

court can boast such company? What school of philosophy 
such wisdom? The wit of the ancient world is glancing and 
flashing there. There is Pan's pipe; there are the songs of 
Apollo. Seated in my library at night and looking on the silent 
faces of my books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense 
of the supernatural. They are not collections of printed pages, 
— they are ghosts. I take one down, and it speaks with me in a 
tongue not now heard on earth, and of men and things of which 
it alone possesses knowledge. I call myself a solitary, but some- 
times I think I misapply the term. No man sees more company 
than I do. I travel Avith mightier cohorts around me than ever 
did Timour or Genghis Khan on their fiery marches. I am a 
sovereign in my library ; but it is the dead, not the living, that 
attend my levees. 

The house I dwell in stands apart from the little town, and re- 
lates itself to the houses as I do to the inhabitants. It sees every 
thing, but is itself unseen, or, at all events, unregarded. My 
study-window looks down upon Dreamthorp like a meditative 
eye. Without meaning it, I feel I am a spy on the ongoings of 
the quiet place. Around my house there is an old-fashioned 
rambling garden, with close-shaven grassy plots and fantastically- 
clipped yews, which have gathered their darkness from a hun- 
dred summers and winters ; and sun-dials, in which the sun is 
constantly telling his age ; and statues, green with neglect and 
the stains of the weather. The garden I love more than any 
place on earth: it is a better study than the room inside the 
house which is dignified by that name. .1 like to pace its gra- 
velled walks, to sit in the moss-house, which is warm and cosy 
as a bird's nest, and wherein twilight dwells at noonday ; to 
enjoy the feast of color spread for me in the curiously-shaped 
floral spaces. My garden, with its silence and the pulses of fra- 
grance that come and go in the airy undulations, afiects me like 
sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully 
through the bars. Among my flowers and trees nature takes me 
into her own hands, and I breathe freely as the first man. It is 
curious, pathetic almost, I sometimes think, how deeply seated in 
the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening. The 
sickly seamstress in the narrow city lane tends her box of sicklier 
mignonette. The retired merchant is as fond of tulips as ever 
was Dutchman during the famous mania. The author finds a 
garden the best place to think out his thought. In the disabled 
statesman every restless throb of regret or ambition is stilled 
when he looks upon his blossomed apple-trees. Is the fancy too 
far brought, that this love for gardens is a reminiscence haunting 
the race of that remote time in the world's dawn when but two 
persons existed, — a gardener named Adam, and a gardener's 
Vvife called Eve ? 



752 KINGSLEY, 



CHARLES KINGSLEY, 1819 

The Rev. Charles Kingsley, D.D., was born near Dartmoor, Devonshire, 
1819, and was educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge, where he obtained 
distinguished honors. In 1844 he became curate, and soon after rector, of 
Eversley, in Hampshire. The same year appeared his first work, under the 
title of Village Sermons, which were much admired for their wisdom as well as 
for their clear and simple style. In 1848 was published The Saint's Tragedy, or 
the True Story of Elizabeth of Hungary, which was a fair and honest representa- 
tion of the piety of the Middle Ages. His labors now took a new direction. In 
conjunction with Rev. F. D. Maurice and some other kindred spirits, he in- 
terested himself deeply in the amelioration and Christianization of the work- 
ing classes. One of the fruits of this noble spirit was Alton Locke, Tailor and 
Poet, — a novel of great power and interest, and whose hero was taken from a 
London workshop. This was followed by Yeast, a Problem, showing the con- 
dition of the English agricultural laborer. In 1853 apjieared Hypatia, or New 
Foes with an Old Face, delineating the conflicts of Christianity with Paganism 
in the fifth century. Two years after he published what has been called the 
best of his works -in this line, — Westward Ho! or the Voyages and Adventures of 
Sir Amyas Leigh, Knt., in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.'^ His other prose works 
are — Servions on National Subjects; David, Four Sermons; The Gospel of the Pen- 
tateuch; Two Years Ago ; Miscellanies, two volumes ; The Heroes, or Greek Fairy- 
Tales for my Children; besides a large number of articles in the magazines. 
Besides these numerous prose works, so creditable to his heart as well as to his 
t^ste and scholarship, Mr. Kingsley has written some very fine poetry. Andro- 
meda is the longest of his later poems ; but he will be best remembered and 
prized for his shorter pieces and his lyrics, many of which are exceedingly 
beautiful. In 1859 he was appointed Professor of Modern History in the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge. His latest work is Hereward, the Last of the English.'^ 



WORDS versus WORKS. 

Dost thou fancy, as the heathen do, that God needs to be flat- 
tered with fine words ? or that thou wilt be heard for thy much 
speaking and thy vain repetitions ? He asks of thee works as 
well as words ; and, more, He asks of thee works first, and words 
after. And better it is to praise Him truly by works without 
words, than falsely by words without works. 

Cry, if thou wilt, "Holy, holy, holy. Lord God of Hosts!" but 
show that thou believest Him to be holy, by being holy thyself. 
Sing, if thou wilt, of "The Father of an Infinite Majesty;" but 
show that thou believest His Majesty to be infinite, by obeying 
his commandments like those Three Children, let them cost theo 
what they may. 

1 See a short analysis of this in George I of Hereward, son of the famous Lady Godiva 
Brimley's Essays. of Coventry, and the " grim earl" Leofric, her 

2 A novel depicting the roving adventures | husband. 



KINGSLEY, 753 

SCIENCE NOT THE GREATEST. 

Science, indeed, is great ; but she is not the greatest. She is an 
instrument, and not a power ; beneficent or deadly, according as 
she is wielded by the hand of virtue or vice. But her lawful 
mistress — the only one which can use her aright, the only one 
under whom she can truly grow and prosper and prove her 
divine descent — is Virtue, the likeness of Almighty God. * * * 
History gives us many examples in which superstition, many, 
again, in which profligacy, have been the patent cause of a 
nation's degradation. It does not, as far as I am aware, give us 
a single case of a nation's thriving and developing when deeply 
infected with either of those two vices. 

THE POETS OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH 
CENTURIES.^ 

If poetry, in order to be w^orthy of the nineteenth century, 
ought to be as unlike as possible to Homer or Sophocles, Virgil 
or Horace, Shakspeare or Spenser, Dante or Tasso, let those too 
idolized names be rased henceforth from the calendar. * * * 
In one word, if it be best and most fitting to write poetry in the 
style in which almost every one has been trying to write it since 
Pope and plain sense went out and Shelley and the seventh 
heaven came in, let it be so written ; and let him who most per- 
fectly so " sets the age to music" be presented by the assembled 
guild of critics, not with the obsolete and too classic laurel, but 
with an electro-plated brass medal, bearing the due inscription, 
" Ars est nescire artem."^ And when, in tw'elvemonths' time, he 
finds himself forgotten, perhaps decried, for the sake of the next 
aspirant, let him reconsider himself, try whether, after all, the 
common sense of the many will not prove a juster and a firmer 
standing-ground than the sentimentality and bad taste of the few, 
and read Alexander Pope. 

In Pope's writings, whatsoever he may not find, he will find 
the very excellencies after which our young poets strive in vain, 
produced by their seeming opposites, which are now despised and 
discarded : naturalness produced by studious art ; sublimity by 
strict self-restraint; depth by clear simplicity; pathos by easy 
grace ; and a morality infinitely more merciful, as well as more 
righteous, than the one now in vogue among the poetasters, by 
honest faith in God. If he be shocked by certain peculiarities 
of diction and by the fondness for perpetual antitheses, let him 
remember that what seems strange to our day was natural and 
habitual in his ; and that, in the eyes of our grandchildren, 

1 Taken from his Essay entitled " Alexander I 2 " The perfection of art is to be ignorant 
Pope and Alexander Smith." | of art." 



751 



KINGSLEY. 



Keats's and Shelley's peculiarities will seem as monstrous as 
Pope's or Johnson's do in ours. But if, misled by the popular 
contempt for Pope, he should be inclined to answer this advice 
with a shrug and a smile, we entreat him, and all young poets, to 
consider, line by line, word by word, sound by sound, only those 
once well-known lines, which many a brave and wise man of 
fifty years ago would have been unable to read without honor- 
able tears : — 

" In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, 
The floor of plaister, and the walls of dung, 
On once a flock-bed, but repair' d with straw, 
With tape-tyed curtains, never meant to draw, 
The ' George and Garter,' dangling from that bed, 
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, 
Great Villiers lies.^ Alas ! how changed from him, 
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim ? 
Gallant and gay, in Clieveden's^ proud alcove. 
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury^ and love ; 
Or just as gay, at Council, in a ring 
Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king. 
No wit to flatter, left of all his store ! 
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. 
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends. 
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends." 

Yes ; Pope knew, as well as Wordsworth and our " Naturalisti," 
that no physical fact was so mean or coarse as to be below the 
dignity of poetry, when in its right place. He could draw a 
pathos and sublimity out of the dirty inn-chamber, such as 
Wordsworth never elicited from tubs and daffodils ; because he 
could use them according to the rules of art, which are the rules 
of sound reason and of true taste. 



THE WORLD'S AGE. 



Who will say the world is dying ? 

Who will say our prime is past? 
Sparks from heaven, within us lying, 

Flash, and will flash to the last. 
Fools ! who fancy Clirist mistaken ; 

Man a tool to buy and sell ; 
Earth a failure, God-forsaken, 

Ante-room of hell. 

Still the race of hero-spirits 

Pass the lamp from hand to hand ; 

Age from age the words inherits, — 
Wife and child and fatherland. 



Still the youthful hunter gathers 
Fiery joy from wold and wood ; 

He will dare as dared his fathers. 
Give him cause as good. 

While a slave bewails his fetters ; 

While an orphan pleads in vain ; 
While an infant lisps his letters. 

Heir of all the ages' gain ; 
While a lip grows ripe for kissing ; 

While a moan from man is wrung ; 
Know, by every want and blessing. 

That the world is young. 



1 George Villiers, the second Duke of Buck- 
ingham, " was yet more famous for his vices 
than his misfortunes. Though he had pos- 
sessed £50,000 a year, and had passed through 
many of the higliest posts in the kingdom, he 
ilied in 1688 in a remote inn in Yorkshire, re- 
duced to tlae utmost misery.'" — Pope. 

2 Clieveden was a beautiful palace on the 



banks of the Thames, built by the Duke of 
Buckingham. 

3 The Countess of Shrewsbury was a woman 
of abandoned character. Tlie Earl, her hus- 
band, was killed by the Duke of Buckingham 
in a duel; and it was said that during the 
combat she held the duke's horses in the habit 
of a page. 



ARNOLD. 



755 



A FAREWELL. 

My fairest child, I have no song to give you ; 

No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray ; 
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you 
For every day. 

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; 
Do noble tilings, not dream them, all day long ; 
And so make life, death, and that vast forever, 
Jne gi-and, sweet song. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD, 1822- 



Matthew Arnold, the poet and essayist, is the eldest son of the celebrated 
Dr. Arnold of Rugby, and was born December 24, 1822. After his preparatory 
course at Winchester and Rugby, he entered Baliol College, Oxford, and carried 
off a prize for English verse. In 1845 he Avas elected Fellow of Oriel College, 
and from 1847 to 1851 he acted as private secretary to the Marquis of Lands- 
downe.i On relinquishing this office, he was married to a daughter of Mr. 
Justice Wrightman. In 1857 he was chosen Professor of Poetry in the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, and, two years afterwards, Foreign Assistant Commissioner 
to the Royal Commission on Education, in which capacity he visited France, 
Holland, and Switzerland. 

Mr. Arnold's first appearance as an author was as a poet. The Strayed 
Reveller, and other Poems, appeared in 1848; Empedocles on Etna, 1853; Poems, 
1854 ; Merope, a tragedy, 1858. In these works he shows he has little sympathy 
with the modern innovations in our poetic style and diction, and counsels the 
rtiod^s of classic antiquity. Though these works give evidence of carefully 
cultivated taste and true poetic feeling, it is as a prose-writer he is now most 
known and read. His Essai/s will ever be prized as among the best things in 
our language.2 

HOMER'S TRANSLATORS. 

Homer is rapid in his movement, Homer is plain in liis words 
and style, Homer is simple in his ideas, Homer is noble in his 
manner. Cowper renders him ill because he is slow in his move- 
ment and elaborate in his style ; Pope renders him ill because he 
is artificial both in his style and in his words ; Chapman renders 



1 This nobleman (a noble man, indeed) died 
January 31, 1863. He formed a splendid library, 
and one of the noblest collections of pictures 
and statuary in the kingdom. From Lis being 
such a munificent patron of literature and the 
arts, the Landsdowne edition of Shakspeare 
was named after him. It was first published 
by White, 1852, and a new edition by Bohn, 
1858. The peculiarity of it is that the names 
of the characters, stage-directions, &c. are 
printed in red. It is beautifully illustrated 
by thirty-seven steel plates, and is, in my 



view, the most desirable edition of Shakspeare 
in one volume. 

2 " His essays have been among the most 
brilliant things going. Always with specula- 
tion in them, always pervaded by some one 
main thought wiiich is distinctly announced 
and strongly kept to, they might, in this re- 
spect alone, be cited as among the best 
examples we have of real essay-writing amid 
the acres of twaddle that assume the name." — 
Reader, August 22, 1863. 



756 ARNOLD. 

him ill because he is fantastic in his ideas ; Mr. Newman renders 
him ill because he is odd in his words and ignoble in his manner. 
All four translators diverge from their original at other points 
besides those named ; but it is at the points thus named that 
their divergence is greatest. For instance, Cowper's diction is 
not as Homer's diction, nor his nobleness as Homer's nobleness ; 
but it is in movement and grammatical style that he is most 
unlike Homer. Pope's rapidity is not of the same sort as Homer's 
rapidity, nor are his plainness of ideas and his nobleness as 
Homer's plainness of ideas and nobleness ; but it is in the arti- 
ficial character of his style and diction that he is most unlike 
Homer. Chapman's movement, words, style, and manner, are 
often far enough from resembling Homer's movement, words, 
style, and manner ; but it is the fantasticality of his ideas which 
puts him farthest from resembling Homer. Mr. Newman's move- 
ment, grammatical style, and ideas, are a thousand times in strong 
contrast with Homer's ; still it is by the oddness of his diction 
and the ignobleness of his manner that he contrasts with Homer 
the most violently. 

Therefore the translator must not say to himself: " Cowper is 
noble, Pope is rapid. Chapman has a good diction, Mr. Newman 
has a good cast of sentence. I will avoid Cowper's slowness, 
Pope's artificiality. Chapman's conceits, Mr. Newman's oddity ; 
I will take Cowper's dignified manner, Pope's impetuous move- 
ment, Chapman's vocabulary, Mr. Newman's syntax, and so make 
a perfect translation of Homer." Undoubtedly in certain points 
the versions of Chapman, Cowper, Pope, and Mr. Newman, all 
of them have merit; some of them very high merit, others a 
lower merit ; but even in these points they have none of them 
precisely the same kind of merit as Homer, and therefore the 
new translator, even if he can imitate them in their good points, 
will still not satisfy his judge, the scholar, who asks him for 
Homer and Homer's kind of merit, or, at least, for as much of 
them as it is possible to give. 

HOMER AND MILTON. 

The first kind of blank verse which naturally occurs to us is 
the blank verse of Milton, which has been employed, with more 
or less modification, by Mr. Cary in translating Dante, by Cowper 
and by Mr. Wright in translating Homer. How noble this metre 
is in Milton's hands, how completely it shows itself capable of 
the grand, nay, of the grandest, style, I need not say. To this 
metre, as used in the Paradise Lost, our country owes the glory 
of having produced one of the only two poetical works in the 
grand style which are to be found in the modern languages ; the 
Divine Comedy of Dante is the other. England and Italy here 



ARNOLD. 757 

stand alone ; Spain, France, and Germany have produced great 
poets ; but neither Calderon, nor Corneille, nor Schiller, nor even 
Goethe, has produced a body of poetry in the true grand style, 
in the sense in which the style of the body of Homer's poetry, 
or Pindar's, or Sophocles's, is grand. But Dante has, and so 
has Milton ; and in this respect Milton possesses a distinction 
which even Shakspeare, undoubtedly the supreme poetical power 
in our literature, does not share with him. Not a tragedy of 
Shakspeare but contains passages in the worst of all styles, the 
affected style ; and the grand style, although it may be harsh, or 
obscure, or cumbrous, or over-labored, is never affected. In spite, 
therefore, of objections which may justly be urged against the 
plan and treatment of the Paradise Lost, in spite of its possess- 
ing, certainly, a far less enthralling force of interest to attract 
and to carry forward the reader than the Iliad or the Divine 
Comedy, it fully deserves, it can never lose, its immense reputa- 
tion ; for, like the Iliad and the Divine Comedy, nay, in some 
respects to a higher degree than either of them, it is in the grand 
style. 

But the grandeur of Milton is one thing, and the grandeur of 
Homer is another. Homer's movement, I have said again and 
again, is a flowing, a rapid movement ; Milton's, on the other 
hand, is a labored, a self-retarding movement. In each case, the 
movement, the metrical cast, corresponds with the mode of evo- 
lution of the thought, with the syntactical cast, and is indeed 
determined by it. Milton charges himself so full with thought, 
imagination, knowledge, that his style will hardly contain them.. 
He is too full-stored to show us in much detail one conception, 
one piece of knowledge: he just shows it to us in a pregnant 
allusive way, and then he presses on to another; and all this 
fulness, this pressure, this condensation, this self-constraint, enters 
into his movement, and makes it what it is, — noble, but difficult 
and austere, '^omer is quite different : he says a thing, and says 
it to the end, and then begins another, w^iile Milton is trying to 
press a thousand things into one. So that whereas, in reading 
Milton, you never lose the sense of laborious and condensed ful- 
ness, in reading Homer you never lose the sense of flowing and 
abounding ease. With Milton line runs into line, and all is 
straitly bound together ; with Homer line runs off" from line, and 
all hurries away onward. Homer begins, My^v aecde, ded,^ — at 
the second word announcing the proposed action: Milton be- 



gms: 



"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 



1 MyjvLV oeiSe, Qea—Mcnin acide, Thea. The anger (of Achilles) sing, Goddess! 

64 



758 



ARNOLD. 



Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 
Sing, heavenly muse." 

So chary of a sentence is he, so resolute not to let it escape him 
till he has crowded into it all he can, that it is not till the thirty- 
ninth word in the sentence that he will give us the key to it, the 
word of action, the verb. Milton says : — 

"O for that warning voice, Avhich he, who saw 
The Apocalypse, heard cry in heaven aloud." 

He is not satisfied unless he can tell us, all in one sentence, and 
without permitting himself to actually mention the name, that 
the man who had the warning voice was the same man who saw 
the Apocalypse. Homer would have said, " O for that warning 
voice, which John heard ;" and if it had suited him to say that 
John also saw the Apocalypse, he would have given us that in 
another sentence. The effect of this allusive and compressed 
manner of Milton is, I need not say, often very powerful. 



DESIRE.^ 



Thou, who dost dwell alone, — 
Thou, who dost know thine own, — 
Thou, to whom all are known 
From the cradle to the grave, — 

Save, oh, save ! 
From the world's temptations, 
From tribulations ; 
From that fierce anguish 
Wherein we languish ; 
From that torpor deep 
Wherein we lie asleep, 
Heavy as death, cold as the grave ; 

Save, oh, save ! 
When the Soul, growing clearer, 
Sees God no nearer : 
When the Soul, mounting higher, 
To God comes no nigher : 
But the arch-fiend Pride 
Mounts at her side. 
Foiling her high emprize. 
Sealing her eagle eyes, 
And, when she fain would soar, 
Makes idols to adore ; 
Changing the pure emotion 
Of her high devotion 
To a skin-deep sense 
Of her own eloquence ; 
Strong to deceive, strong to enslave,- 

Save, oh, save ! 

From the ingrain'd fashion 
Of this earthly nature 



That mars thy creature ; 

From grief, that is but passion ; 
From mirth, tliat is but feigning ; 

From tears, that bring no healing ; 
From wild and weak complaining ; 

Thine old strength revealing, 
Save, oil, save ! 
From doubt, where all is double ; 

Where wise men are not strong ; 
Where comfort turns to trouble ; 

Where just men suffer wrong; 
Where sorrow treads on joy ; 
Where sweet things soonest cloy; 
Where faiths are built on dust ; 
Where Love is half mistrust. 
Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the 
Oh, set us Ijtee ! [sea., 

Oh, let the false dream fly 
Where our sick souls do lie 
Tossing continually. 
Oh, where thy voice doth come 
Let all doubts be dumb; 
Let all words be mild ; 
All strifes be reconciled ; 
All pains beguiled. 
Light bring no blindness ; 
Love no unkindness ; 
Knowledge no ruin ; 
Fear no undoing. 
From the cradle to the grave, 
Save, oh, save ! 



1 This niiaht rather be called A Prater, as it is an earnest and suhlime one. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



759 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS 

OF THE SEVENTH DECADE; 

EMBRACING THE MOST PROMINENT WRITERS LIVING IN 1860. 



;4.lberi, J^rancis - Atigusius - C/iarles - JEJmmamiel (1819-1861 ), 
Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and consort of Queen Victoria, to whom 
he was married February 10, 1840. Since the death of this truly illus- 
trious prince, there have been published — The. Principal Speeches and 
Addresses of His Royal Highness the Prince- Consort, and Prince Alberi's 
Golden Precepts. These works are beautifully illustrative of his noble 
character. Placed, by marriage, in a position of peculiar delicacy, with 
no direct power, and yet with influence unbounded, he so conducted 
himself at all times and upon all occasions, public and private, as to 
elicit the warmest approbation from the best and wisest men in the king- 
dom, and to gain the hearts of all, from the prime minister to the 
humblest subject. 

^hiswort/i, William I^rancrs (born 1807), distinguished as a tra- 
veller. Researches in Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldcea, 1838 ; Travels in 
Asia Minor, &c., 1842 ; Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand Greeks, — 
the result of two journeys, spread over a period of seven years. 

A.inswo7^t?i, William Sarrlsoti (born at Manchester, 1805), a novelist. 
Sir John Chiverton, 1826; Rookwood, 1834; followed in successive years 
by Jack Sheppard, The Tower of London, Windsor Castle, &c. His works, 
popular at the time with certain classes, have sunk into oblivion. Mr. 
Ainsworth is now proprietor of the New Monthly Magazine and Bentley's 
Miscellany. 

^Ird, Thomas, is a Scotch poet, born in 1802, and was for nearly thirty 
years editor of the Dumfries Herald, and an occasional conlributor to Black- 
wood^ s Magazine. Few, if any, living poets of Scotland rank higlier ; 
though this is but comparative praise.' His works are — Old Bachelor in 
the Old Scottish Village; Religious Characteristics, &c. In 1852 he edited, 
with much taste and discrimination, an edition of the select poems of 
David Macbeth Moir, with an admirable life. Tiie following, which is 
worthy of being preserved, is from his poem entitled 



THE mvER. 



Infant of the weeping hills. 
Nursling of the springs and rills, 
Growing river, flowing ever, 
W'inipling, dimpling, staying never, 
Lisping, gurgling, ever going, 
Lipping, slipping, ever flowing, 
Toying routid the polish'd stone, 
Kiss the sedge and journey on. 
Here's a creek where bubbles come, 
Whirling make your ball of foam. 
There's a nook so deep and cool, 
Sleep into a glassy pool. 



Breaking, gushing, 

Downward rushing. 
Narrowing green against, the hanJc, 
Where the alders grow in rank, — 

Thence recoiling. 

Outward boiling. 
Fret in rough shingly shallows wide 
Your ditlicult way to yonder side. 
Thence away, aye away, 
Bickering down the sunny day, 
In the sea, in yonder west. 
Lose yourself, and be at rest. 



1" Scottish poetry does not, certainly, enjoy | no longer popularize the manners, customs, 
that proud and palmy pre-eminence it once and history of Scotland throughout the length 
possessed. Its Scotts, "Campbells, and Burnses j and breadth of the earth." — Eclectic Review. 



760 



SUPPLEMENTARY A UTHORS, 



Alexander J Cecil I^rances, sacred poet and hymn- writer, — one of the 
most beantiful of the present century. She was born in Ireland, and her 
maiden name was Humphreys, under which her works first appeared, 
Verse%jor Holy Seasons, 1846. In 1856 she was married to Eev. William 
Alexander, rector in Strabane, Ulster. Legend of the Golden Prayer, 1859. 
That grand hymn, The Burial of Moses, beginning, — 
'• By Nebo's lonely mountain," 

which in an English publication was credited to our poet Whittier,' is 
Mrs. Alexander's. 

^l/brd, IIe7i?'y, D.D., Dean of Canterbury, poet and biblical critic, was 
born in London in 1810. His chief works are — Poems and Poetical Fracj- 
ments, 1831; The School of the Heart, 1835; Hvlsean Lectures, 1841';^ 
Poetical Works, 2 volumes, 1845; The Neiv Testament for Enr/lish Headers, 
with a critical and explanatory commentary, 2 volumes, 1863-65; and 
A Plea for the Queen's English. The object of the last work is to expose 
the present tendency to ''slipshod" writing, — to incorrectness in ex- 
pression and syntax in our current English literature.' Unhappily, the 
dean himself, in this very work, has committed many mistakes, and is 
guilty of numerous infelicities of style, which have been cleverly exposed, 
with no little wit and sarcasm, by G. Washington Moon, in his essay en- 
titled The Dean's English. I regret that duty obliges me to add that the 
dean's book is marred by some mean, unworthy, and unjust flings against 
my country. His latest work (1866) is, How to Study the New Testament.'^ 

;>iUh?jgf//aj?Z, William, an Irish song-writer. Poems, 1850; Bay and 
Night Songs, 1854; The Music-Master, 1855. Some of his songs are said 
to be popular in Ireland, though little known here. The BaUad-Book, 
a selection of the choicest British ballads, 1865. 

^r??old, £'dirin (born 1831), a recent poet and essayist of considerable 
merit. Griselda, a drama ; Poems, Narrative and Lyrical; The Euterpe 
of Herodotus, a metrical translation, with notes, &c. 

^7'noldy 7%0)nas. A Mmmal of English Literature, London, 1862: an ex- 
cellent survey of this wide field. Mr. Arnold was Professor of English 
Literature in the Catholic University of Ireland. 

:Aytoit7i, 7filliaj?i £^dmo72stoiine, born in Edinburgh in 1813. In 1840 
he was admitted to the Scottish bar, and in 1845 was appointed Professor 
of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres in the University of Edinburgh, which 
chair he held till his death, August 4, 1865. He was one of the chief 
contributors to Blackivood's Magazine. His fame rests chiefly upon his 
spirit-stirring Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers,- the twelfth edition of which 
was published in 1859. His other chief works are — Bothwell, a Poem, — 



1 This reminds me that that grand piece on 
MiUon's blindness, beginning, "lam old and 
blind," by our own Mrs. Howell (written when 
she was Elizabeth Lloyd), was published in 
London, in an edition of Milton's poetry, as a 
lojig-lost piece of the great poet's, recovered ! 
Could a finer tribute be paid to its worth? 

2 The Rev. John Hulse, of Elworth, Chester, 
who died childless in the latter part of the 
last century, left the bulk of his property to 
St. John's College, Cambridge, to found the 
lluhean PrnfessorsMp of Dwinity, 4c. The 
duty of the lecturer or preacher is to preach 
not less than four nor more than six sermons 
in the course of the year upon Christian Doc- 
trine. 

8 In this work the dean gives numerous 



amusing examples of careless writing; among 
which is an advertisement from the London 
Times, reading thus : — " A Bachelor of Arts, 
now holding a sole charge, will be disengage<l 
on the 17th of Septemlier. He is an extem- 
pore preacher of the doctrines of Grace, in all 
their sanctifying influence, and now seeks 
another." According to the construction of 
the lanfiiiacie used, the advertiser wants anotlier 
" doctrine" or another " sanctifying influence :" 
whereas he means, probably, that he wants 
another " sole charge." 

•* It would be well for the dean, in the next 
edition of this work, to inform us how, if 
judging of nations, he expounds npoi'oovfxivoi. 
Ka\a, in the latter clause of Romans xii. 17. 



SUPPLEMENTAR Y A UTIIORS. 761 

a vindication of the character of Queen Mary; Fermilian, a Spasmodic 
Tragedy ; and the Ballads of Scotland. In conjunction with Theodore. 
Martin (q. v.), he wrote Ballads by Bon Gaultier; and a vokime of ad- 
mirable translations of tlie Poems and Ballads of Goethe. In 1853 he 
delivered a course of lectui-es in London on Poetry and Dramatic 
Literature. 

!BaUej^, "P/n'lip J'amss (horn in Nottingham, in 1816), a philosophical 
poet of considerable distinction. Fcstus, by which he is most known, was 
begun before he had reached his twentieth year, and published in 1839. 
It was received with great applause at first; but, unequal, incongruous, 
and mystical, it soon passed into neglect, notwithstanding its occasional 
beauties.^ It was followed by The Amjel World, and other Poems, 1850; 
The Mystic, and other Poems, 1855 ; and The Age, a Colloquial Satire, in 
1858. 

Sain, 'Professor jilexander, of Aberdeen (born 1818), author of The 
Senses and the Intellect, and The Emotions of the Will. He also contributed 
the articles on Logic and Mental Philosophy to Chambers's Cyclopcedia. 

Sallantyne, James (b^rn 1808), a Scotch poet, known as much, perhaps, 
for his skill in the revived art of glass-ijainting as for his Scottish Songs. 
The Gaberlunzies' Wallet, a tale, was published in 1843. In 1856 a col- 
lective edition of his poetical works was published. 



Say7ie, 'Peter , is the author of two very valuable volumes, entitled Es 
■in Biography and Criticism. The subjects are as follows : — First Series : 
I. De Quincev ; 11. Tennyson ; III. Mrs. Browning ; IV. Recent British 
Art ; V. Buskin ; VI. Hugh Miller ; VII. The Modern Novelists,— Bul- 
wer, Dickens, Thackeray ; VIII. Currer Bell and her Sisters. Second 
Series: I. Charles Kingslev; IL Macaulay; III. Alison the historian; 
IV. S. T. Coleridge; V. Wellington; VI. Buonaparte; VII. Plato; VIII. 
Characteristics of Christian Civilization ; IX. The Modern University ; 
X. The Pulpit and the Press ; XL Testimony of the Rocks.^ 

!Se72nett, William C, a lyrical poet, who published, in 1859, Songs by a 
Song- Writer; and in 1860, Poems. Miss Mitford has characterized him 
as " a charming and richly-gifted poet."^ 

!Slackie, John Stuart (born in Aberdeen, 1809), Professor of Greek in 
the University of Edinburgh. In 1834 he gave an English translation of 
Goethe's Faust; in 1850, the lyrical dramas oi JEschylus, in two volumes, 
admirably done.* In 1850 appeared Lays and Lyrics of Ancient Greece, with 
other Poems; and in 1860, Lyrical Poems. Professor Blackie has also 
written for the Foreign Quarterly Review, the Westminster, Blackwood, and 
Tail, and contributed the articles "JEschylus" and "Homer" to the 
Encyclopcedia Britanniea. He is considered as one of the most accom- 
plished scholars of Great Britain. 

Sorro7P, George (born 1803, near Norwich). 1841, Zincali, or an Account 
of the Gypsies in Spain, of whom he calculates there are forty thousand ; 
also the Bible in Spain, 1843, — a book of deep interest, being an account 
of journeys, adventures, and imprisonment while travelling in that 
country as the agent of the Bible Society. He has also written Lavengro, 
— the Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest, 1851 ; and Romany Rye, a sequel to 



1 Its object has been said to be " to describe 
the history of a divinely-instructed mind, soar- 
ing upwards to communion with ' the Uni- 
versal Life.' " 

2 Very neat editions of these works have been 
published by Gould & Lincoln, Boston. 

64 



3 See chapter xxxiv. of that very interesting 
work. Recollections of a Literary Life, by Mary 
Russell Mitford. Specimens of his poetry can 
be seen in Stoddard's Later Poets. 

4 See some specimens in the Compendium of 
Classical Literature. 



762 SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 

this. His last work is Wild Wales, 1863, designed as a sort of counter- 
part to thie Bible in Spain. 

!Sosw07'th, !l>7\ Joseph (born 1790), Professor of Anglo-Saxon in Oxford, 
and distinguished as a philologist, has done more than any other man to 
revive Anglo-Saxon studies in England. Elements of Avglo-Saron Gram- 
mar, 1823 ; A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language, 1838 ; The Origin 
of Danish Literature, 1842 ; Origin of the English, Germanic, and Scandi- 
navian Languages and Nations, 1846. His last work (1865) is, The Gospels 
in Gothic of A.D. 360 , and in Anglo-Saxon of 995, in Parallel Columns, with 
Wycliffe's Version of 1389, and Tyndale's of 1526, in 1 volume royal 8vo, 
— a very valuable addition to biblical and philological libraries. 

^OfP'7V.ng, Sir Jb?i7i (born at Exeter, 1792), a translator, colonial governor, 
&c. In 1823 npYtesired Specimens of the Russian Poets ; in 1S27 , Specimens 
of the Polish Poets, &c. He wrote many valuable papers for the govern- 
ment Blue Books, and, after receiving many honorable public trusts, was 
in 1853 appointed Governor of Hong Kong. In 1857 appeared his King- 
dom and People of Siam, 2 volumes. Sir John has also written a few 
beautiful sacred lyrics ; such as, 

" How sweetly flow'd the gospel's^ound !" 
"In the cross of Christ I glory;" 
" Watchman ! tell us of the night." 

In the Fortnightly Review of November 15, 1865, is a fine paper by him 
on Lord Palmerston. 

Soj'd, "Rev. oi7)drew JS'ennedy jStetc/iinso??, a clergyman of the 
Church of Scotland, born 1825. First known by papers in Fraser^s Maga- 
zine, signed A.K. H. B. These have been reprinted under the titles of 
Recreations of a Country Parson, Leisure Hours in Town, Graver Thoughts 
of a Country Parson, The Common- Place Philosopher in Town and Country, 
Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson. All his works, though not re- 
markable for vigor of style or depth of thought, are very pleasant and 
profitable reading.^ 

Sradbii7y, S. II. , a poet who, under the pen-name of "Quail on," has 
written some very musical lyrics, found in a volume entitled Leoline, and 
Lyrics of Life, London, 1860. 

Brewster, Sir David (born 1781, in Jedburgh, Scotland), a distinguished 
astronomer and natural philosopher. A treatise on that philosophical 
toy (which he invented), the Kaleidoscope, 1816; editor of the Edinburgh 
Encyclopaedia for twenty years ; Euler\^ Lectures and Life, 1823 ; a Treatise 
on Optics, 1831 ; The Martyrs of Science (lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, 
and Kepler) ; More Worlds than One, 1854, — endeavoring to show that 
other planets, and even the sun, may be inhabited ; The Life of Newton, 
first published in 1828, and greatly enlarged in 1855. He has been an 
important contributor to the Edinburgh and North British Reviews. 

brooks, C/iarles S/nrley (born 1815), a lawyer by profession, — a dra- 
matist, novelist, and journalist in practice. His plays are — Our New 
Governess, Honors and Riches, &c. ; his novels, — The Gordian Knot, Aspen 
Court, &c. He was connected with the Morning Chronicle, and is a regu- 
lar contributor to Punch. 

:Sroug?i, Hohert I^. (born 1828), London ; author of several dramatic 
pieces; also of What to Eat, Drink, and Avoid; Medea (a burlesque), &c. 

1 Very beautiftil editions of his works have I who may be considered as his American pub- 
been published by Tickuor & Fields, Boston, | Ushers exclusively. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 763 

^row7ie, F'rances (born 1816), "the blind poetess of Ulster," who lost 
her eyesiglit from small-pox when only eighteen months old. But the 
poetic spirit was in her ; and she early wrote small pieces for the Iri&h 
Penny Journal and the Alhencmim. In 1844 she published The Star of 
Atteghei, and other Poems; and in 1847, Lyrics and Miscellaneous Poems. 

Buchanan, 'Roberf, a recent poet, of considerable power and elegance 
of versitication. U ndertones ; and Idyls and Legends of Inverburn.^ These 
justify our expectations of still greater things. 

:Siickle, Henry Thomas (1822-1862), wrote History of Civilization in 
England, the lirst volume of which appeared in 1857, and the second in 
1861. It is a work of great pretension, of considerable learning, and of 
some accomplishment; but in tracing the progress of mankind he attri- 
butes all changes to material causes, overlooking the teachings of inspira- 
tion in the Old Testament, and the precepts and example of Christ and 
His apostles in the New, — the very things that have done most to amelio- 
rate the condition of mankind. This, to use the common illustration, is 
the play of " Hamlet" with the character of Hamlet omitted. 

^urto7i, Jb/iU mil (born 1809, at Aberdeen), a Scottish advocate. 
Political and Social Economy, 1849 ; History of Scotland, 1853 ; also, Life 
and Correspondence of David Hume; Lives of Lord Lovat and Duncan 
Forbes of CuUoden; Narratives from Criminal Trials in Scotland. He 
wrote the articles " Parliament" and " Prison Discipline" for the Ency- 
clopcedia Britannica. 

Cah'nes, J'. £J., Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy, 
Queen's College, Belfast. Lectures on Political Economy, 1857; The 
Slave-Poioer, its Characfer, Career, and Probable Designs, 1862. This 
work does the professor immortal honor, not only for its great ability, 
but for its being so far ahead of the sentiments of the great mass of the 
literary men of his country, in its earnest sympathies with our govern- 
ment in its efibrts to crush the slaveholders' rebellion, 1861-1865. 

Campbell^ 'Iiig?it Holt. Z/Ord John (1779-1861), son of a Scottish 

minister: originally a reporter for the Tl/or/im^ Chronicle; called to the 
bar in 1806: M.P. for Staflbrd, 1830; in 1834, Attorney-General; in 
1841, Lord Chancellor of Ireland ; in 1850, Chief-Justice of England ; 
and in 1859, Lord Chancellor. The Lives of the Lo)d Chancellors, &c., 
from the Earliest Times to the Reign of George IV., 1845-47, in 7 volumes; 
Lives of the Chief -Justices of England, 1849, 2 volumes : both works of 
great value. 

Candllsfi, 'Robe^^i S., D.D. (born 1807), a Scottish minister, and, after 
Dr. Chalmers's death, leader of the " Free Church." His works on 
Genesis, on Scripture Characters, on the Atonement, on the Resurrection, and 
on Maurice^s Theological Essays, are most known, and are highly prized. 

Carletoti, William (born 1798), an Irish novelist. His chief works are — 
Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry; Fardarougha the Miser; Valen- 
tine McClutchy; Willy Reilly; The Fawn of Spring Vale; The Clarionet, 
and other Tales, 3 volumes ; The Misfortunes of Barney Branagan. 

Carpc?iler, William Senjamfn, son of Dr. Lant Carpenter* (born 
1813), a distinguished physiologist. Principles of General and Comparative 
Physiology; Principles of Human Physiology, Vegetable Physiology, and 
Botany, Zoology, and Instinct in Animals; Popular Cyclopedia of Natural 

1 Messrs. Roberts, of Boston, have published (1S66) a beautiful edition of his poems. See, also, 
extracts iu Stoddard's Later Poets. 2 gee page 297. 



764 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



Science, 7 volumes, 
ment. 



All these works rank very high in that depart- 



Chambers, WilUain and Robert (William born at Peebles, in 1800; 
Robert, in 1802), authors, editors, and publishers, and the pioneers of 
cheap literature. It may safely be said that no other house in England 
or America has done so much to diffuse among the people so many works 
at once entertaining, instructive, and elevating; such as their Journal, 
begun in 1832, and now amounting to about 40 volumes ; their Educa- 
tional Course, 70 volumes; Information for the People, 2 volumes; Cyclo- 
pcedia of English Literature, 2 volumes ; Papers for the People, 12 volumes; 
Miscellany of Useful and Entertaining Tracts, 20 volumes ; Encyclopoedia, to 
consist of about 12 vohmies, 8 volumes being out at the close of 1865. 
Their last finished work is The Book of Pays, 2 volumes royal 8vo, edited 
by Eobert Chambers; containing a vast amount of curious and valuable in- 
formation. William Chambers has written the Gazetteer of Scotland ; the 
Book of Scotland; Things as they are in America; Slavery and Color in 
America;^ and pamphlets on Improved Dwellings, and Co-Operation among 
the Working Classes, &c. &c. Robert Chambers has written Traditions of 
Edinburgh, 2 volumes; Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 1 volume; Pictures 
of Scotland, 2 volumes, &c.; edited Biography of Distinguished Scotsmen; 
and projected the celebrated Edinburgh Journcd, &c. &c. 

Clare, J^ohn (born 1793), the peasant-poet of Northamptonshire. Poems 
Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, 1820; The Village Minstrel, and 
other Poems, 1821. 

Clar/ce, Jifary Cowden (born 1809), daughter of the eminent musician 
Vincent Novello ; married in 1828 to Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke, author 
of The Riches of Chaucer, and Tales in Prose from Chaucer. Mrs. Clarke 
deserves and has insured perpetual remembrance from her Complete Con- 
cordance of S hakspeare, — a work of great labor, and as remarkable for its 
accuracy as its fulness. She has also written The Iron Cousin, a novel ; 
The Girlhood of S hakspeare' s Heroines; World-Noted Women; and Many 
Happy Retu7'ns of the Day, a birthday book, 

Cloitghy ^rt/ner Ilug?i (1819-1861), an accomplished scholar and 
pleasing poet ; Professor of the English Language and Literature at Uni- 
versity College, London. Poems, 1849 f a translation of Plutarch's Lives, 
1859. At the time of his death he had begun a poetical translation of 
Homer.3 

ColensOy 'Rev. John William, D.D., Bishop of Natal, born in 1814. 
First known for his excellent educational works in mathematics, — Algebra, 
1848 ; Plane Trigonometry, 1851, — but subsequently for his denial of the 
historical truth of the Pentateuch, in his work (1863-64) entitled The 
Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined. This work gave rise 
to much controversy, and answers without number immediately ap- 
peared. The work was condemned in a convention of bishops at Canter- 
bury in 1864.4 

Collier, John ^ay7ie (born 1789), London, originally a law student and 
journalist; reporter for the Morning Chronicle and the Times. But he 
soon became more known as a Shakspearian critic and commentator. 



1 Both these works are the result of a visit 
to the United States in 1853. 

2 A beautiful edition of his 2''oems has been 
published by Ticknor & Fields, with an appre- 
ciative Memoir by Charles Eliot Norton. 

8 " He possessed in an emiueut degree these 



two invaluable literary qtialities, — a true sense 
of his object of study, and a single-hearted 
care for it." — Matthew Arnold. 

* In the London Rporhr, February 7 and 21, 
1SG3, may be found articles on the contro- 
veisy. 



SUPPLEMENTAR Y A UTHOES. 765 

The Poetical Decameron, 1820; a new edition of Dodsley'a Old Plays, 
1827; History of English Dramatic Poetry, 3 volumes, 1831; New Facts 
regarding the Life and Works of Shakspeare, 1837 ; a new edition of Shak- 
speare, 1844; Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakspeare^ s Plays, 
1852. As to tlie merits of this last work, the critics are divided. His 
latest work is A Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Barest Books in 
the English Language, 18G6, 4 volumes, — a work of great research and value. 

Collier, William J^raticis (born 18—), author of School History of the 
British Empire; The Great Events of History ; and A History of English 
Literature, in a Series of Biographical Sketches. The last, especially, is a 
valuable manual. 

Collins, Vilkie (born 1825, in London), biographer and novelist. A Bio- 
graphy of his father, William Collins, a celebrated painter. Antonina, or 
the Fall of Rome, his first novel, was very popular. His other works are — 
Rambles beyond Railways; Basil; Mr. Wray''s Cash-Box; Hide and Seek; 
After Dark; The Dead Secret; The Frozen Deep, and The Light-House, 
two dramas. His last and best works are — The Woman in White, 1860, 
contributed to ^4// the Year Round; No Name, 1862 ;^ and Armadcde, 1866, 
contributed to the Cornhill Magazine. These have since been published 
in volumes. 

Co7ii7igt07i, Jb/f?i (born 1825), Professor of Latin in Oxford. Works of 
Virgil, with an English Commentary, 1858 ; Odes of Horace, translated into 
English Verse, 1863. 

Co7ij'bea?'e, "Rev. W, J'., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
^Essays, Ecclesiasticcd and Social. Also, in conjunction with Eev. J. S. 
Howson, Liverpool, published The Life and Epistles of St. Paid, in 1852, 
in two volumes quarto, illustrated by numerous maps, plans, &c.: a work 
of very great research and value. 

Cooke, Geo7^ge Wi7ig7^ove (1814-1860). History of Party, 3 volumes, 
1832 ; — " a book for which there is no substitute in the library of English 
history and politics." Liside Sebastopol, 1856 ; Conquest and Colonization 
in Northern Africa, 1860. 

Cooper, T?i077ias (born 1805), "the Chartist." He lectured at the Pot- 
teries during the riots of 1842, and was confined two years in Stafford 
jail. While there, he wrote his epic poem in the Spenserian stanza. The 
Purgatory of Suicides, which contains passages of great power. His other 
works are — Wise Saws and Modern Instances, 1845; Baron's Yule Feast, 
a Christmas rhyme, 1846 ; Triumphs of Perseverance, and Triumphs of 
Filter prise, 1861. 

C7^aigf 3fiss Isa (born 1830), won the prize poem for her Ode recited 
at the Burns Centenary Festival, 1859, against six hundred and t^venty 
competitors. 

Craik, George ZilUe, LL.D. (1798-1866), late Professor of History and 
English Literature in Queen's College, Belfast, wrote many valuable 
works; such as The Pursuit of Knoidedge under Difficulties; iSpenser and 
his Poetry; Bacon, his Writings and his Philosophy; The English of Shak- 
speare; and the Romance of the Peerage. He also contributed largely to 
the Penny Cyclopedia; and, as editor of the Pictorial History of England, 
wrote some of its most valuable chapters. He also wrote an admirable 
History of the English Language and Literature, in two large octavos; and 
an abridgment of the same, called A Manual, in 1 volume duodecimo. 

1 " Taken as a story only, No Name is a wonderfully able one."— iZeader, January 2, 1863. 



'Q6 



SUPPLEMENTARY A UTHOBS. 



Crowe, Catharine Stevens^ (born 1803), a novelist. Aristodemus, a tra- 
gedy, 1838 ; The Adventures of Susan Hopley, 1841, — a novel of English 
life, and quite successful ; Men and Women, or Manorial Bights, 1843 ; 
The Story of Lilly Daxcson, 1847 ; The Night Side of Nature, or Ghosts and 
Ghost-Seers, 1848 ; Light and Darkness, or Mysteries of Life, 1850 ; The 
Adventures of a Beauty, 3 volumes, 1852 ; Linny Lockwood, 2 volumes, 
1854. In her 3Ien and Women she thus writes of 

THE SEXES. 

If, as we believe, under no system of training, the intellect of woman 
would be found as strong as that of man, she is compensated by her in- 
tuitions being stronger: if her reason be less majestic, her insight is 
clearer ; where man reasons, she sees. Nature, in short, gave her all that 
was needful to enable her to fill a noble part in the world's history, if man 
would but let her play it out, and not treat her like a full-grown baby, to 
be flattered and spoiled on the one hand, and coerced and restricted on 
the other, — vibrating between royal rule and slavish serfdom. 

Cu77imingy ^ev. J^o/m, D.D. (born in Scotland, 1810), is a celebrated 
preacher in Drury Lane, London, but known the world over for his con- 
troversial writings upon Prophecy and "The Second Advent." His 
chief works are — Apocalyptic Sketches; Voices of the Night; Voices of the 
Day ; Lectures on Bevelation; The Great Tribulation, on the coming of 
Christ ; The Destiny of Nations, &c. He has written and published no 
less than ninety different treatises upon these and kindred subjects. 

^eniaus, 'lioberf, author of a Glass-Book of English Prose, 1859; hitro- 
duction to the Llistory of English Literature, 1860; Poets and Prose- Writers 
of Great Britain, 1860. 

S)israeli , Se??ja?nh? (born in London,. 1805), son of Isaac Disraeli.^ In 
1826 he publisbed Vivian Grey, his first novel; this was followed by 
The Young Duke, Henrietta Temple, Contarini Fleming, Coningsby, Sibyl. 
Tancred, &c. He has been frequently in Parliament, was Chancellor oi 
the Exchequer under Lord Derby, 1852, and again in 1866. He has re- 
cently published revised and annotated editions of his father's works. 

S>ix07iy IflUiam JSepworth (born 1821), is known and honored as a 
philanthropist as well as an author. His chief works are — Literature of 
the Lower Orders; London Prisons ; John Howard and the Prison- World 
of Europe. In 1851, in his Life of William Penn, he replied to the 
charges brought against that eminent and good man by Lord Macaulay, 
and showed conclusively some of his lordship's mistakes.^ In 1852 ap- 
peared his Life of Blake. In 1853 he was appointed editor of the Athe- 
naeum. In 1860 he published The Life of Lord Bacon, — vindicating the 
great philosopher triumphantly against the charges of Lord Campbell, 
and against the stinging epithet of Pope, — "the meanest of mankind." 
For tills we owe him a great debt of gratitude. In 1866 appeared his 
two valuable volumes on The Holy Land. 

2)obell, Sj'dQiey (born 1824), under the nom de plume of Sydney Yendys, 
has written some very creditable poetry. The Boman, a dramatic poem, 
1850, is considered his best work. In 1854 appeared Balder, a Poem, 
Part the First; in 1855, Sonnets on the War, written in conjunction with 
Alexander Smith ; and in 1856, England in Time of 'War. 



1 Her maiden name was Catharine Stevens, 
and in 1822 she was married to Lieutenant- 
Colonel Crowe. 

2 See Supijlementary List in the Fifth Decade. 



8 For instance, he showed clearly that the 
"Taunton pardon-broker" was not William 
Penn, as Macaulay has it, but one Georye 
Pcnne. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 767 

^onaldso7i, Jo /in jniUam, D.D. (1810-1861), for many years head- 
master of the grammar-school of Bury St. EdrauncVs, and distinguished 
for his great classical learning. His first work was The Theatre of the 
Greeks. In 1839 appeared The New Crafybis, — a work of great erudition 
on philology. But he will be most known and valued by scholars for his 
continuation of Mnller's History of the Literature of the Greeks, after thp 
author's death, in 3 volumes, — a most valuable contribution to classical 
literature. 

2>oran, :2>r. Jbh?iy F.S.A. (born in Ireland, 1807), is one of the editors 
of the Athenceum. Annals of the English Stage, 2 volumes ; Table Traits, 

1 volume ; Queens of England, 2 volumes ; Habits and Men, 1 volume ; 
Knights and their Days, 1 volume; Monarehs Retired from Business, 

2 volumes. He is also an extensive contributor to the leading Reviews. 

^yce, "Rev. ^lexatide?^ (born in Edinburgh, 1798), an Episcopal clergy- 
man ; more known as editor of works of early English Literature : — of 
Peek, 2 j^olumes ; of Greene, 2 volumes ; of Webster, 4 volumes ; of Middle- 
ton, 5 volumes; of Beaumont and Fletcher, 11 volumes; of Malone, 

3 volumes. Also, Notes on Shakspeare; Specimens of British Sonnets; and 
an edition of Shakspeare, 6 volumes. 



J^Ws, 3f?^s. Scira/f, whose maiden name was Sarah Stickney, was bom 
about 1812. In 1837 she was married to Rev. William Ellis, a mis- 
sionary to the South Sea Islands. Her chief works are — The Women of 
England, The Daughters of England, The Mothers of England, Social Dis' 
tinction, and Family Secrets, &c. 

JS'lliSj "Rev, yyilUain^ born in the latter part of the last century, was 
sent by the London Missionary Society to Madagascar and the South Sea 
Islands. History of Madagascar, 1838 ; History of the London Missionary 
Society, 1844; Three Visits to Madagascar, 1858. 

^Ip7dnst07ie, Son, Mbtmtstuart (1778-1861). Account of the King- 
dom of Caubul, &c., 1815; History of Lidia, 1841. He has been called 
" the Tacitus of Indian historians." 

£^rans, Ji^fiss Mary ji. (born 1820), a lady who, under the name of 
George Eliot, has written some very popular novels: — Adam Bede, 1858; 
The Mill on the Floss, 1859 ; Silas 'Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe, 1861 ; 
Scenes in Clerical Life, 1861 ; Romola, 1864; Felix Holt, the Radical, 1866. 
She was at one time joint editor of the Westminster Review. 

I^aher, liev. JP'redejnck jrilUam, D.D. (1814-1863), was first vicar 
of Elton, Huntingdonshire, but in 1845 he went over to the Roman 
church. He is the author of many religious works, but is most known 
for his Hymns, many of which are very beautiful. The last verse of that 
beginning, — 

" Oh, it is hard to work for God," — 

should be engraved on every heart : — 

" For right is right, since God is God, 
And right the day must win : 
To doubt would bo disloyalty, 
To falter would be sin." 

Fellows, Sir Charles (1799-1861), is distinguislied as a traveller. 
A Journal written during an Excursion in Asia Minor, 1838 ; Ancient 
Lycia, &c., 1840 ; The Xanthian Marbles, &c., 1843. 

Fbrrier, James JF^., a metaphysician, born in Edinburgh, 1808. Tn&ti- 
tutes of Metaphysics, 1854 : and an edition of Professor Wilson's Works. 



768 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



JFhi'beSf Jat7tes ^avid, born in Edinburgh, 1808. Travels in the Alps of 

Savoy; Norway and Glaciers; Papers on ike Theory of Glaciers. 

JFo7^ster, John, born in Newcastle, 1812. Lives of the Statesmen of the 
Commonwealth, 7 volumes, 1840; Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith, 
1854 ; Historical and Biographical Essays, 1858. 

J^orsyth, William, of the Inner Temple (born 1812), is the author of 
several works on law, but is best known by his Life of Cicero, 2 volumes, 
1865, which presents some new views of the illustrious Eoman orator. 

Gaskell, Mrs. Mizabeth Cleghorn (1822-1865), wife of a Unitarian 
clergyman in Manchester. Her first work was Mary Barton, 1848, — a 
picture, of much power and fidelity, of the character and social condition 
of large manufacturing towns in England. Her next works were — 
Moorland Cottage, 1850; Cranford;^ Sylvia's Lovers; and North and South, 
1855, — another story of factory life. In 1857 appeared her Life of Char- 
lotte Bronte, — one of the most interesting biographies that has appeared 
this century. Her last work, Wive,s and Daughters, — by "far her best 
effort, — was published as a serial in the Cornhill Magazine. But, before 
it was quite completed, she ceased to write, having died suddenly, while 
sitting and reading with her daughters, November 12, 1865.^ Slie thus 
beautifully expresses why she was moved to write her first work, — her deep 

SYMPATHY WITH THE POOR. 

I had always felt a deep sympatliy with the care-worn men, who looked 
as if doomed to struggle through their lives in strange alternations be- 
tween work and want, — tossed to and fro by circumstances apparently in 
even a greater degree than other men. A little manifestation of this 
sympathy, and a little attention to the expression of feelings on the part 
of some of the work-people with whom I was acquainted, had laid open 
to me the hearts of one or two of the more thoughtful among them : I saw 
that they were sore and irritable against the rich, the even tenor of whose 
seemingly happy lives appeared to increase the anguish caused by the 
lottery-like nature of their own. Whether the bitter complaints made by 
them of the neglect which they experienced from the prosperous — espe- 
cially from the masters whose fortunes they had helped to build up — 
were well founded or no, it is not for me to judge. It is enough to say 
that this belief of the injustice and unkindness which they endure from 
their fellow-creatures taints what might be resignation to God's will, and 
turns it to revenge, in too many of the poor, uneducated factory-workers 
of Manchester. 

Gil/illan, "Rer. Geo7^ge (born 1813), settled in Dundee as a Presbyterian 
clergyman ; a critic and essayist. Gallery of Literary Portraits, first and 
second series; Bards of the Bible; Book of British Poetry; Martyrs, 
Heroes, and Bards of the Scottish Covenant; The Fatherhood of God; The 
History of a Man; Alpha and Omega, 2 volumes of sermons, 1860. 

Gladst07ie, Sir IVilliam J^wart, born in Liverpool in 1809. Edu- 
cated at Oxford ; entered Parliament in 1832, since Avhich his political 
career has been as brilliant as it is honorable. In 1861 he was made 
Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, and has shown 
himself a financier of consummate ability. His annual '' budgets," long 
and profound as they are, are as interesting as a novel. In 1866 the 



1 Said to represent the small town in 
Cheshire where her youth was passed. 

2 In our late struggle with the slaveholders' 
rebellion, she was the earnest friend of the 



righteous cause. In a prefatory note to her 
last w ork she says, " This book is dedicated 
to all my Northern friends, with the truest 
sympathy of an Eugiishwoman." 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS, 



769 



Liberal cabinet resigned, and Gladstone was succeeded by Disraeli. As 
a literary man, his fame rests on his great work, Studies on Homer and 
the Homeric Age, in 3 octavo volumes.^ 

Glei^, ^er. George Robert (born 1796), "Chaplain-General of the 
Forces." The Subaltern; The History of the Bible, 2 volumes; The His- 
tory of British India, 4 volumes ; The Country Curate; The Chelsea Pen- 
sioners; Life of Sir Thomas Munro; Military History of Great Britain; 
The Life of Lord Clive, 3 volumes; Life of the Great Duke of Wellington; 
2 volumes of Essays contributed to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews; 
Sermons, &c. 

Gore, Mrs. Catharine JFra9?c?s (1800-1861), wife of Captain C. A. 
Gore, a novel-writer of fashionable life, and one of great fertility, having 
written nearly seventy works, amounting to about 140 volumes. Her 
first was Theresa Marchmont, 1823 ; this was followed by Cecil, The Hamil- 
tons, &c. Her last was The Two Aristocracies. 

Gra7it, t/ames (born at Elgin, 1805), journalist ; first connected with the 
Chronicle, then with the Morning Advertiser: author of Random Recollec- 
tions of the House of Lords, 2 volumes ; House of Commons, 2 volumes ; 
The Great Metropolis, 2 volumes ; The Bench and the Bar, 2 volumes, &c. 

Gra7it, James (born in Edinburgh, 1822), a writer of military novels, and 
of memoirs of commanders. Spending much of his early life in the ser- 
vice with his father. Captain John Grant, gave direction to his tastes and 
writings. Some of his works are — Adventures of an Aid e-de- Camp ; Phan- 
tom Regiment; Scottish Cavalier; Romance of \Var; The Yellow Frigate; 
Cavaliers of Fortune, or British Heroes in Foreign Wars; 3Iemoria's of 
Edinburgh Castle, &c. 

GrattaUy Thovias Colley, a novelist, born in Dublin, 1796. High- 
Ways and By- Ways, 1823 ; Traits of Travel, 1829 ; The Heiress of Bruges, 
1830 ; The History of the Netherlands, 1830, &c. While British consul at 
Boston (1839-1853J he wrote a pamphlet on the Northeastern Boundary 
Question. 

Gray, !Dai'ld (1838-1861), a Scotch poet of some merit, whose volume of 
Poems has a well-written introductory notice by Lord Houghton. His 
longest poem — The Luggie — celebrates the beauties of the little stream by 
which he lived and died.^ 

Grote, George^ D.C.L. (born 1794), though educated as a merchant, has 
carried oflf the highest prizes in literature, in his History of Greece, 12 
volumes (1846-1856), — the best work, doubtless, on that subject, in our 
language f and his Plato and the other Companions of Socrates, 3 volumes, 
1865, — giving a masterly and exhaustive review and analysis of the life, 
writings, and opinions of the great Greek philosopher. He has promised 
another book, of which Aristotle is to be the hero. 

Sail, Sanuiel Carter (bom 1801), first studied for the law, and was ad- 
mitted to the bar, but soon after determined to devote his time to litera- 
ture. He became editor of the New Monthly Magazine in 1830. He was 



1 On the 3d of November, 1865, he delivered 
a brilliiint Valedictory Address, as Rector of 
Edinburgh University, upon the subject, The 
Place of Ancient Greece in the Providential 
Order of the World. His recent long and elo- 
quent speech in Parliament (April, 1866), in 
favor of the Reform Bill, will immortalize his 
name as the great champion of human rights. 



2 Specimens may be seen iu Stoddard's 
Later Poets. 

3 " No part of the historical field is neglected. 
Mr. Grote's is a philosophical history, a con- 
stitutional history, a military history, a lite« 
rary historj^ an ethnological history, a bio- 
graphical history, all in one." — Beader, April 
4, 1863. Read a fine article on his " Plato," iu 
the North British Review, December, 1865. 



65 



770 SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 

the editor of The Booh of Gems, Book of British Ballads, The Baronial 
Halls of England, — all beautifully illustrated works, which were very 
popular. In 1839 he began the publication of The Art Journal. In 1851 
he published the Illustrated. Catalogue of the Exhibition of the Industry of 
All Nations. The number of volumes which he and his wife liave pub- 
lished separately and conjointly is more than one hundred. In the num- 
bers of the Art Journal in the early months of 1866 may be found a 
series of interesting articles written by this accomplished pair, upon 
Memories of the Authors of the Age. 

Hall, Mrs. Samuel Carter, was Anna Maria Fielding, of AVexford, 
and in 1824 was married to Mr. S. C. Hall, of the Art Journal. Her 
chief works are — Sketches of Irish Character, The Buccaneer, Talcs of 
Woman's Trials, The Outlaw, Stories of the Irish Peasantry, The Woman's 
Story, Can Wrong be Right? Her name is associated with her husband's 
in The Book of the Thames, and The Book of South Wcdes, — books beauti- 
fully illustrated, and full of interesting and valuable information. Her 
books for children are numerous, and of an excellent character; of these, 
Uncle Sam's Money-Box has had, perhaps, the widest circulation. 

JUan^iay, tTames (born at Dumfries, 1827), a novelist and reviewer. 
Singleton Eontenoy, 1850; Eustace Conyers, 1852. In 1853 lie delivered a 
course of lectures in London on Satire and Satiri^sts, which were soon 
after published. In 1861 he published his Essays contributed to the Quar- 
terly Review. 

Jffarris, t/b^n, a recent poet, a Avriter for the Pocticcd Souvenir and All the 
Year Round, has published a volume entitled Wandering Cries, which has 
in it much of the true poetic spirit. 

ITead, Sir I^rancis So7id (born 1793), an author, and ex-Governor of 
Upper Canada. Rough Notes of a Journey across the Pampas, 1826 ; 
Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassaii; Life of Bruce; A Eagot of Erench 
Sticks, &c. 

Merschel, Sir Johii J^redericA^ William (born 1792), an astronomer. 
Treatise on Sound, Outlines of Astronomy, Treatise on Light, Physical Geo- 
graphy, &c. 

JE[l7iion, 'Her. Jo/in Jloft^ard {horn at Oxford, 1791), a Baptist minister. 
Theological Works, 6 volumes; History and Topography of the United 
States, 2 volumes quarto. 

JElodges, Sj'dne^, a recent poet, author of The Battle of Hastings, and other 
Poems. Some pieces in this volume — as Angels' Visits, and Daisy Bell — 
give evidence of a mind deeply impressed with the beautiful in nature, 
and full of pure aspirations. 

Hook, lier. JFalier J^a^^quhar, D.D. (born 1798), incumbent at Leeds 
twenty-two years ; and in 1859, Dean of Chichester. Church Dictionary, 
Ecclesiastical Biography, &c. In 1861-64 he published the Lives of the 
Archbishops of Canterbury, 2 volumes. 

Morale, ^lcha7^d Heti^^y (born 1807), critic and dramatist. The Death 
of Marloive; Cosmo de Medici ; Gregory VIL; Orion, a poem. He has 
also contributed to the Westminster, to Eraser's, and to Tail's. 

jSor7ie, ^ev. TAomas Martwell, D.D. (1780-1862), a biblical critic; 
prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral. His Introduction to the Critical Study 
and Knowledge of the Scriptures is a standard text-book in most of the 
theological seminaries in Great Britain and our country. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



771 



Jlowson, liev. Jb//n Saul (born 1816), author of various lectures and 
sermons; but chiefly known as the joint author, Avith the Late Rev. W. T. 
Conybeare, of that very valuable work, The, Lij'e and Epistles of St. 
Paul, 2 volumes quarto. 

hughes, Tfwnias (born 1823), a chancery barrister, was educated at 
Rugby, under Dr. Arnold, and at Oriel College, Oxford. Pie has given 
us a full and life-like picture of the former, and some beautiful sketches 
of the character of its noble head-master, in that fascinating book, Tom 
Brown^s School- Days ; while in Tom Broiim at Oxford we are introduced 
into the every-day life at that renowned university. His other chief 
work is The Scouring of the White Horse, or the Long Vacation Ramble of 
a London Clerk. He is also the author of several tracts, and a frequent 
contributor to the London Reader.^ 

ItigeloWy Miss Jean (born 1830). has written Tales of Orris, a volume of 
short stories; Home Thoughts and Home Scenes; Songs of Seven, — poems, 
— and Studies for Stories. The Atheivjeum gives her high praise. 

Jhnes, Cosmo, Professor of History, Edinburgh, is the author of Scotland 
in the Middle Ages; Sketches of Early Scottish History. 

James, Geo7^ffe 'Payne ^ams/'ord (1801-1860), a popular and volu- 
minous writer of historical novels. From Richelieu, his first, and said to 
be his best, novel, 1829, down through Darnley, and Philip Augustus, and 
Charlemagne, and The Black Prince, and Richard Coeur de Lion, and Arn- 
bella Stuart, &c. &c., he has written, in all, about one hundred and ninety 
volumes. Alas for him who has to read them all ! though it has been 
said that "to read one of James's novels is to read all," — such is their 
sameness. 

Jerden, William (born 1782), journalist. In 1817 he became editor of 
the Literary Gazette, which position he held till 1850. His Autobiography, 
in 4 volumes, was published in 1852-53. He is now (1866), at the ad- 
vanced age of eighty-five, about to publish a volume of reminiscences, 
entitled The Men I have Known. 

Jewsbury, Miss Geraldine ^ndsor (born 1824), a novelist. Zoe, or 
the History of Two Lives, 1845 ; The Half Sisters, 1848 ; Constance Herbert, 
1854 ; The Sorrows of Gentility, 1856. 

£^aranag?f, Miss Julia, was born in Tipperary, Ireland, 1824. Her 
first book was a Christmas tale for children, entitled The Three Paths, 
1847. Since that, she published Madeline, a Tale of Auvergne, founded on 
Facl;"^ Women in France during the Eighteenth Century ; The Women of 
Christianity ; Daisy Burns, &c. &c. 

JS^eightley, Thomas, historian (born in Dublin, 1789), is author of a His- 
tory of Rome, a History of Greece, a History of England, — all very popular 
as school-books ; also of Fairy Mythology, Outlines of History, and the 
Mythology of Greece and Ltcdy. He has also given us editions of Virgil, 
Horace, and Ovid; and a Life of Milton, with an edition of his Poems. 

JTemble, I^rances A.nne (born 1811), is the elder daughter of the late 
Charles Kemble, and niece of Mrs. Siddons. Her career as an actress 
was one of great fame for some years ; but she has long since retired from 
the stage, and has given " Readings" in Shakspeare, which have been 



1 Mr. Hughes is another nohle Englishman 
who deserves the gratitude of every American 
for the noble stand he took for truth and 
righteousness in our great civil strife. 



2 The Fact is tlie story of a peasant girl who 
by her labor founded a hospital in her native 
village. 



772 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



brilliantly successful. When quite young she produced two dramas, — 
Francis the First, and 2'he Star of Seville. Her last work was Journal of 
a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, — in which she lays bare some of the 
horrors of slavery, as seen with her own eyes on the " model plantation" 
of her husband (one Pierce Bntler), from whom she soon after obtained 
a divorce, and resumed her own honored maiden name. 

JS:inglake, Alexander Villi am, a London barrister, was born in 
Taunton, 1811. His first work, in 1850, entitled Eothen ("from the 
East"), embodied his experiences of Eastern travel, and Avas deservedly 
popular for its graceful style, lively description, and eloquent thought. 
He accompanied the English army to the Crimea in 1854; and in 1863 
appeared his Invasion of the Crimea, in 2 volumes, — a work of great 
power. It produced at once the greatest excitement, for its aim was to 
tell the truth of all parties concerned ; but its plain and pungent state- 
ments, however unwelcome to some, have never been disproved. 

£:higsley, iren?:y, brother of Charles (born 1830), has contributed to 
Eraser's and Macmillan's. His chief works are — Ravenshoe; The Hillyars 
and the Burtons, a Story of Two Families; Austin Elliot, 2 volumes; The 
Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn. 

^Jiig/it, C?ia?^les, author and publisher, was the son of a bookseller, and 
born at Windsor in 1791. In 1823 he removed to London, and esta- 
blished KnigMs Quarterly Magazine. In 1827 he commenced liis career 
as editor and publisher of many very valuable works for the " Society for 
the Difiusion of Useful Knowledge;" such as The British Almanac, The 
Library of Entertaining Knowledge, The Library of Useful Knowledge, the 
Penny Magazine, and the Penny Oyclopcedia. To him are we also in- 
debted for Half-Hours with the Best Authors; and for those richly illus- 
trated and valued works, — The Pictorial Bible, The Pictorial Shakspeare, 
and The Popular History of England. In 1864 appeared an autobiography 
of great interest, entitled Passages of a Working Ufe during Half a Cen- 
tury, with a Prelude of Early ReminiscenceSf 3 volumes. His last work is 
Shadoivs of the Old Booksellers, 1866.1 

Zalng, Samuel, a traveller.^ Residence in Norway in IS 34-36 ; A Tour 
in Sweden in ISSS ; Notes of a Traveller in Europe in IS 54; Observations 
on European People in 184S-49 ; and On Denmark, &c., 1851. 

Zathmn, (Robert Got^don, M.D. (born 1812), a philologist and ethno- 
logist. The Varieties of Mankind, The Ethnology of Europe, The History 
of the English Language, Travels in Scandinavia, Descriptive Ethnology. He 
has now (1866) nearly completed a new edition of Johnson's Dictionary 
as edited by Eev. H. J. Toddj to be in two large quarto volumes. 

Zeake, ZleitL-Col, Martini (1777-1860), a distinguished classical 
traveller. Researches in Greece, 1814; Topography of AtJiens, 1821; Jour- 
nal of a Tour in Asia Minor, 1824; Travels in Northern Greece, 1835; 
Peloponnesus, 1846. 

JLecky, 7K J5J. Jf., author of the History of the Rise and Influence of Ra- 
tionalism in Europe. It is a work of great learning, and valuable as a 
history of the progress of civilization.^ 



1 " Than Mr. Charles Knight there lives no 
•writer bettor qtialified to survey the relation 
of oiir authoi-s and publishers in past times." 
— Aihenseum, December 23, 1865. 

2 He is a younger brother of the author of the 
History of Scotland, mentioned in the second 
decade, and must not be confounded with 



Samuel Laing, a London barrister, the efficient 
railway commissioner, who is a nephew of the 
historian. 

3 His definition of " Rationalism" is very 
loose ; and he ignores too much the agency of " 
Christianity in promoting human progreaa. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 773 

Leino7if J^fark (born 1809), editor of Punch. He is the author of upwards 
of sixty dramatic pieces, and has written largely in Household Words and 
the Illustrated News; he has also edited a collection of jests, and written 
numerous songs. Prose and Verse, 1852, 

Z,ever, Chaf^les James (born 1809), an Irish novelist. The Confessions 
of Harry Lorrequer (his first work), 1839; Charles C Medley ; Jack Hin- 
ton; Our 3Iess; Roland Cashel; The Daltons ; The Knight of Gwynne; 
The Dodd Family Abroad; The Fortunes of Glencore; Arthur O'Leary; 
A Pay's Ride, &c. &c. 

J^ewes, George ire7iry (born 1817), is one of the deepest thinkers and 
ablest writers of this century. His chief works are — A Biogi^aphical His- 
tory of Philosophy ; The Spanish Dra'ma; The Life and Works of Goethe; 
Life of Robespierre; Physiology of Common Life; Studies in Animxil Life; 
Ranthorpe, a novel ; Rose, Blanche, and Violet, a novel ; Aristotle, — a Chap- 
ter from the History of Science. He has also contributed largely to the 
chief quarterly reviews and monthly magazines. In May, 1865, appeared 
The Fortnightly Review, under his editorship, which has proved a decided 
success: among other papers in it, he is the author of the interesting- and 
able series entitled Principles of Success in Literature. 

ZfCwlSy ^Ight S^on. Sir George Cornewall (1806-1863), author 
and statesman. He filled various offices of high public trust, until, in 
1861, he was selected by Lord Palmerston to fill the difficult and arduous 
office of Secretary of State for the War Department. In this responsible 
position he showed himself the friend of our country in its great conflict 
with the slaveholding rebels, and used his official influence in our favor. 
He was a distinguished scholar, and author of various political and his- 
torical works, and was for several years editor of the Edinburgh Review. 
The chief of his works are — An Essay on the Use and Abuse of Political 
Terms; An Essay on the Origin and For-mation of the Romance Languages; 
An Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History; On the Astro- 
nomy of the Ancients. He translated Boeckh's Publi-c Economy of Athens; 
and a short time before his death he issued A Dialogue on the Best Form 
of Government. 

JOivingstone, ^ev, ^avid (born 1817, in Scotland), an African mis- 
sionary and traveller, has made more important discoveries in Africa, and 
added more to our knowledge of its inhabitants, than any other traveller. 
His Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, published in 1857, 
is a work of the greatest interest and value. His last work, of equal merit, 
is entitled Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries, and 
of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirma and Nyassa, 1864.^ 

Lover f Samuel (born in Dublin, 1797), started as a miniature-painter. 

Irish Sketches, 2 volumes; Rory CMore; Handy Andy; Molly Carew; 
Molly Bawn, &c. He is also celebrated as a writer of Irish Songs. 

Zyellf Sir Charles (born 1797), an eminent geologist. Principles of Geo- 
logy was his first work, published in 1833. To this succeeded Elements 
of Geology, 1838 ; Travels in North America, 1841 ; The Geological Evi- 
dences of the Antiquity of Alan, 1863.^ 

Z/ytton, Edward 'Robert 'Sulwer (better known under his worn de 
plume of "Owen Meredith"), is the son of Sir Bulwer Lytton, and was 

1 " As an explorer he stands in the very I nightly Review, February 16, 1866, on " Dr. 
highest rank, and as a geographer in the very Livingstone's Errors." 
lowest." Read an able article in the Fort- \ 2 gee an article in £d!m. JBev., vol. 118, p. 254. 

65* 



774 SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 

born in 1831. Clytemnestra, and other Minor Poems, 1855 ; The Wander^', 
a Collection of Poems in Many Lands, 1859 ; Lucile, a poem, 1860, &c. 

J/cCart/^j'y tennis JFtorence (born 1820), an Irish poet. Ballads, 
Poems, and Lyrics, 1850, founded mostly on Irish traditions; Poets and 
Dramatists of Ireland, &c. 

McCosh, 'Rev, James (born in Ayrshire, in 1811), a Scotch meta- 
physician, and a worthy successor of those who have made his land 
famous, is Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Queen's College, 
Belfast. The Method of the Divine Government, Physical and Moral, of 
which the eighth edition appeared in 1850. The Intuitions of the Mind 
Inductively Investigated, 1860; T he Supernatural in Relation to the Natural, 
1862. 

Macleod, "Rev, JVorman, D.D. (born 1812), pastor of Barony Church. 

Glasgow: Home Education ; The Earnest Student; The Morning and Night 
Watches; The Faithful Promiser, &c. ; all admirable. He is now the editor 
of Good Words. 

Marsh, Mrs. :dnne (born about 1800), is the wife of a London banker. 
In 1834 she published her first novel, — Two Old Men^s Tales; this was 
followed by Tales of the Woods and Fields, Emilia Wyndham, Norman^s 
Bridge, Lettice Arnold, Ravenscliff, &c. 

Marston, Westland, LL.D. (born 1820), poet and dramatist. The Patri- 
cian's Daughter, a tragedy ; The Heart of the World, a play ; Philip of 
France, a tragedy ; Gerald, a dramatic poem ; A Lady in her Oum Right, 
a novel, &c. In 1861 he published a collection of his contributions to 
periodical literature, entitled Family Credit, and other Tales. 

Martin, Theodore (born 1816), in conjunction with Professor Aytoun, 
(q, v.), published the Book of Ballads, and Poems and Ballads of Goethe. 
But he is better known as a translator of the Odes of Horace and of Catul- 
lus, — both of which are admirably done. 

Marti'neazij J^tlss Harriet (bom 1802), is the author of numerous 
works on Political and Social Economy, Morals, and Religion. She has 
been unwearied in her application, and has shown great versatility of 
talent. In 1833-34 appeared Illustrations of Taxation, and Poor-Laws and 
Paupers. Soon after, she visited our country, showed her earnest and 
noble sympathy for the slave, and, on her return, published Society in 
America. Her first novel was Deerbrook, 1839 ; this was followed by The 
Hour and the Man, of which the hero was Toussaint L'Ouverture. Then 
came tales for children : — The Playfelloiu; The Settlers at Home; The 
Peasant and the Prince; The Crofton Boys. Her own health was now 
much impaired, and she published Ufe in the Sick-Room, or Essays by an 
Invalid, 1844. On her partial recovery, she published Forest and Game- 
Law Tales. In 1851, in conjunction with Mr, H. G. Atkinson, she pub- 
lished a volume entitled On the Laws of Plan's Nature and Development, 
which shocked the public by its atheistical sentiments. Her last work 
is History of the Peace, being a History of England from IS 16 to IS 5 4, in 
4 volumes, 1866. Though a woman of undoubted talent and learning, 
yet so erratic is her character, and so unreliable and unsound are her 
opinions, that she can never hold a desirable place in English literature. 

Massey, Gerald (born 1828), a poet of considerable merit. Babe Chris- 
tabel, a ballad ; Q'aigcrook Castle, c^nd Other Poems; Now and Them; 
Poetical Works, new edition, 1861j 

Masso7i, ^avid, was born in 1823, at Aberdeen ; npw Professor of Eng- 
lish Literature in University College, London. In 1350 he published 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



m 



Essays, Biographical and Oi'itical, chiefly on English Poets, — consisting of 
his contributions to reviews and magazines. In 1859 he published the 
first vokime of Life and Times of John Milton; the second of which has 
not yet appeared.^ Since that, he has published British Novelists and 
their Style, — a Critical Sketch of the History of British Prose Fiction; and 
Recent British Philosophy, 1865. 

Maurice, '2ier, Jbh7i I^rede7vck ^eniso7i (born 1805), incumbent 
of St. Peter's Chapel, Vere Street, Marylebone, London. He is known 
and honored for his labors, in conjunction with Rev. Charles Kingsley, 
to promote the best interests, physical, educational, and religious, of the 
working classes. To this end he has published many volumes oi Lectures, 
Sermons, &c. ; such as Learning and Working; also, Eustace Comvay, a novel ; 
Claims of the Bible and of Science; Responsibilities of Medical Students, &c. 
His last work is The Workman and the Franchise, — Chapters from English 
History on the Representation and Education of the People, 1866. 

Maj'y Th07nas JE^rskine (born 1815), a London barrister. Constitutional 
History of England since the Accession of George HI., 2 volumes, 1863, — 
giving what was so much wanted, — a reliable history of England of our 
own times. 

Ji€ay?iew^ the brothers Senry, ^iigiishis, Sorace, and Thomas, 

The first two wrote The Greatest Plague of Life, — being the adventures 
of a lady in search of a good servant ; also, Whom to Marry, and how to 
get Married, &c. The oldest, Henry (born 1812), wrote London Labor 
and the London Poor; also. The Wonders of Science, 1855; The Mormons, 
&c. Horace wrote Letters left at the Pastry-Cook's. Thomas commenced 
the Penny National Library. 

Meredith, Geo7^ge (born 1828), novelist and poet. Poems, 1853; The 
Shaving of Shagport, an Arabian Entertainment, 1856 ; Farina, a Legend 
of Cologne, 1858 ; The Ordeal of Richard Peveril, a philosophical novel, 
1859. ' 

Merrvale, ^er. Charles, B.D. (born 1808), is known as the author of 
History of the Romans under the Empire, 7 volumes, 1850-1862, — a per- 
manent and valuable contribution to historical literature ; also. The Con- 
version of the Roman Empire, 1864, — that is, its conversion to Christianity; 
and The Conversion of the Northern Nations, 1866. 

Mill, JbhTt Stua7^t, M.P. for Westminster (born 1807), son of James 
Mill, the historian of India, has been called " the ablest living philo- 
sopher in Europe." System of Logic, 1843; Essays on Political Economy ^ 
1844 ; Principles of Political Economy, 1848 ; A Treatise on Liberty, 1859 ; 
An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, aiul of the Principal 
Philosophical Questions discussed in his Writings, 1865. He has recently 
written some able articles in the Westminster Review, upon the Writings 
and Philosophy of M. Auguste Compte,^ which have been published in a 
volume. In 1860 he published a selection from his contributions to 
reviews, under the title of Discussions and Dissertations; and in 1863, 
a work on Utilitarianism. 

Mor7^is, JVillia7}Z, a recent poet of some merit. The Defence of Guenevere; 
A Good Knight in Prison, &c. 



1 " Mr. Masson's volume has many sterling 
merits and some serious defects. His industry 
is immense; his zeal unflagging; his special 
knowledge of Milton's Life and Times extra- 
ordir.ary; and, when he does not copy the 
vicci of Mr. Carlyle's diction, his style is 



manlv, easy, and picturesque." — Edinburgh 
Review, April, 1860. 

2 Read articles in North British Review, 
No. 55 ; Princeton Review, October, 1865 ; 
Christian Examiner, November, 1865 ; Reader, 
April 18, 1863. 



776 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



" Two hands upon the breast, 

And labor's done; 
Two pale feet cross'd in rest, — 

The race is won ; 
Two eyes with coin-weights shut, 

And all tears cease ; 
Two lips where grief is mute, — 

Anger at peace :" 
So pray we oftentimes, mourning our lot: 
God in His kindness answereth not. 



Muloch, Miss S)inah M^aria (born 1826), is one of our best novelists. 
The Ogilvies, 1846 ; Olive, 1850 ; The Head of the Family, 1851 ; John 
Halifax, Gentleman, 1856, — a very noble book. Since that, the following 
have appeared : — A Life for a Life; Christian's Mistake; Studies from 
Ldfe; A Noble Life, 1865;^ a volume of Poems; and many books for 
young people, — Bhoda's Lessons, Fairy Tales, Our Year, &c. In 1864 
she obtained a literary pension of £100 a year ; and in 1865 she was 
married to a son of the late Professor Craik, of Queen's College, Belfast. 
I feel that I must give a place to the following little gem. 

NOW AND AFTERWARDS. 

" Two hands to work address'd 

Aye for His praise ; 
tvfo feet that never rest, 

Walking His ways ; 
Two eyes that look above 
Through all their tears ; 
Two lips still breathing love. 
Nor wrath, nor fears :" 
So pray we afterwards, low on our knees ; 
Pardon those erring prayers! Father, hear 
these ! 

Murc?i)S07i, Sir 'Roderick Impey, D.C.L., &c. (born 1792), is eminent 
as a geologist. Siluria, the History of the Oldest-Known Rocks containing 
Organic Remains; Geological Structure of Russia, &c. 

Mure, Col. William, of Caldwell (1799-1860). His chief production 
(unfortunately left unfinished) is A Critical History of the Language and 
Literature of Ancient Greece, in 5 volumes, — a work of great research and 
learning. Nearly the whole of the first two volumes is devoted to 
Homer and his two great poems ; the third, to the Lyric Poets ; and the 
fourth and fifth, to the Historians from the earliest period to the time of 
Xenophon. In the next he intended to treat of the Attic Drama. Had 
he lived to complete his purpose, his work would undoubtedly have 
been the most comprehensive upon the subject in any language. 

JVapier, Sir Williatn J^. T, (1785-1860). History of the Peninsular War 
from 1807 to 1814, 6 volumes; Conquest of Scinde; Life and Opinions of 
Sir Charles Napier, 

JVen'?na7i, 'Rev, John JBenry, D.D. (bom 1801), one of the leaders of 
the " Tractarian" party in the Church of England ; so called from the 
Oxford Tracts, or Tracts for the Times, the first number of which was pub- 
lished in 1833. The last number, or No. 90, he also wrote, which was 
severely censured by the university authorities as semi-papal ; and soon 
after this (1845) he went fully over to the Papal church, and in 1852 was 
appointed rector of the Catholic University in Dublin. Some of his 
works are — History of the Arians; Prophetical Office of the Church; The 
Church of the Fathers; Essay on Miracles; Development of Christian DoC' 
trine, &c. 

JVewman, J^rancis Williafn (born 1805), for m^ny years Professor of 
Latin in University College, London. In religion he is the very oppo- 
site to his brother, — inclining rather to the latitudinarian school, as 
shown in his Phases of Faith, or Passages from the History of my Faith, 
1850. He has published numerous other works on religious topics ; such 
as Catholic Union; A State Church not Defensible; The Soid, its Sorrows 



1 " -4 Noble Life is more interesting than I previous effort of the author." — Independent. 
most fictions, more useful than many sermons. March 15, 1866. 
Artistically and morally, it is better than any | 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



t (4 



and Aspirations, &c. ; on political topics, — Radical Reforms; Lectures on 
Political Economy, &c.; on classical, — The Odc^ of Horace, translated into 
Unrhymed Metre, 1853; and The J Had of Homer, translated into Unrhymed 
Metre, 1856.^ lie is also the author of Difficulties of Elonentary Geometry, 
and of other valuable educational works.-^ 

JVicholy 'Prof. J'. P., of Glasgow, an eminent astronomer. Yiev:s of the 
Architecture of the Heavens ; Contemplations on the Solar System ; The Stellar 
Universe, &c. &c. 

A''lc?iols, Jb/fn 7)oji{ver (1779-1863), antiquarian and historian.^ His 
chief work is The Life and Errors of John Dunton, Citizen of London, with 
the Lives and Characters of more than a Thousand Contemporary Divines, 
and other Personages of Literary Eminence, &c. He also wrote the con- 
tinuation of his father's great work. Literary Anecdotes, &c., to seventeen 
volumes, under the title. Illustrations of the Literary History of the 
Eighteenth Century ; Anecdotes of William Hogarth, &c., — being a supple- 
ment to his father's work, &c.* 

JYfg?itbigale, J^lorence (born 1820), deserves mention here fdr her noble 
eftbrts to alleviate the sufferings of the English soldiers in the Crimean 
War ; from which resulted her two very valuable little works, Hints on 
Hospitals, and Notes on Nursing. 

JVbet, The JIo7i. a?id ^er. 'Baptist Wriotheslcy (born 1799), left 
the Established Church in 1848, and published Essay on the Union of 
Church and State. Subsequently he has published Essay on Christian 
Baptism; Africa and the East; Sermons; Notes of a Tour in Switzerland; 
Christian Missions; The Case of the Free Church in Scotland; Protestant 
Thoughts in Rhyme; The Rebellion in America.^ 

Oliphantf Jifrs. Jlfargarel (born 1820), a novelist and biographer. 
Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland, 1849; Merkland, a Story 
of Scottish Life, 1851; Adam Graeme of Mossgray, 1852; Henry Muir, 
1853, a pathetic temperance tale ; Chronicles of Carlingford, &c. Her 
latest biographical work (1862) is her life of the eminent preacher, Ed- 
ward Irving, — a valuable contribution to biographical literature ; her 
last novel (1866), Agnes.^ 

Oh^eii, ^}cka7^d, F.R.S. (born 1804), a celebrated surgeon and compara- 
tive anatomist. History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds; Fossil 
Reptiles; Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy of the Invertebrate Animals, 
&c. &c. 



1 See a specimen of this in the Compendium 
of Classical Literature, 

2 In our great struggle with the slaveholders' 
rebellion he was our warm friend, and did no 
little with his pen to enlighten his country, 
men upon the subject. 

3 He was the only surviving son of John 
Nichols, F.S.A., the historian of Leicester- 
shire, the literary biographer of the eighteenth 
century, and for' forty-eight years the editor of 
the Gentleman's Magazine. The full title of 
his great work is. Literary Anecdotes of the 
Eighteenth Century, comprising Biographical 
Memoirs of Willinm Bowycr, Printer, and many 
of his Learned Friends, an Licidcnlal View of 
the Progress and Advancement rf Literature in 
this Kingdom during the Last Century, and 
Biographical Anecdotes of a Considerable Num- 



ber of Eminent Winters and Ingenious A rtists, 
with General Lidexes, 9 volumes, London, 
1812-1815. From his press proceeded the 
greater part of the most magnificent volumes 
that have been produced in the department 
of English Topography. 

* See an extended notice of him in the 
Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1863. 

6 He is a very impressive and eloquent 
preacher, and exerts a very wide and happy 
influence. He was one of those few noblo 
Christian Englislimen who both understood 
the great principles of our struggle and 
espoused warmly the righteous side. 

6 " It bears the stamp of first-rate power, 
which no one can mistake." — Reader, Novem- 
ber 11, 1865. 



778 SUPPLEMENTAR Y A UTHORS. 

Talgrave, Sir JF'rancis (1788-1861), a distinguished antiquary and his- 
torian. Historij of the Anglo-Saxons; Rise and Progress of the English 
Commonwealth; Hand-Rook for Travellers in Northern Italy; History of 
England and Normandy, &c. He also wrote numerous articles for the 
Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. 

Talffrare, T^rancis Turner (born 1824), is the eldest son of Sir Francis 
Palgrave. He is the author of Idyls and Songs; edited The Golden Trea- 
sury of English Songs; and wrote the Art Catalogue of the Great Exhibi- 
tion, 1862. His last work is Essays on Art, 1866. 

Palgrave, William Gifford. A Narrative of a Year's Journey through 
Central and Eastern Arabia, 1865, — a book of d"eep interest, and one add- 
ing greatly to our knowledge of Arabia. 

Tar doe, Miss JTulia (1812-1862), a writer of fiction and books of travel. 
Traits and Traditions of Portugal ; City of the Sidfan; The Romance of the 
Harem; The Realities of the Rosphorus; The Jealous Wife; Flies in 
Amber; Poor Relations, &c. 

Talmore, Coventry, poet, born at Woodford, Essex, 1823. Tamerton 
Church Tower, and other Poems, 1853; The Angel in the House; Faithful 
Forever; Victories of Love ; A Garland of Poems for Children. He is now 
(1866) assistant librarian to the British Museum. 

Trince cllbert. See Albert Edward. 

Tusey, llev. ^Jdward :Bouyeri.e, D.D. (born 1800), one of the leaders 
of the " Tractarian" party, and an early and constant contributor to the 
Tracts for the Times, the tendency of which was to introduce Eornish 
practices into the Church of England, and the real effect to cause many 
of the younger members of the Church to go over to Eome. Some of his 
other works are — Doctrine of the Reed Presence Vindicated; God's Prohi- 
bition of a Marriage of a Deceased Wife's Sister; Comfort of the Penitent in 
Absolution, &c. See notice of Dr. Newman. 

(Ragg, "Rev. Thomas (born 1808), was early a lace-weaver of Notting- 
ham, but is now a curate. Creation's Testimony to its God, which has 
reached the twelfth edition ; Deity, a poem ; The Martyr of Verulam, and 
other Poems; Lyrics from the Pentateuch; Heber; Man's Dreams and God's 
Realities; and nearly thirty other volumes. 

'Ratplinson, ^ev. George (born 1815), is the author of the learned 
historical work. The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, 
in 4 volumes. This work constitutes a most valuable encyclopedia of all 
that is known respecting the geography, the natural history, the ethno- 
logy, the manners and customs, the arts, sciences, and religion, and the 
history and chronology, of the inhabitants of Western Asia. He is- also 
the author of The History of Herodotus, a new version, 4 volumes; His- 
torical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records, eight lectures de- 
livered at Oxford ; The Contrasts of Christianity ivith Heathen Systems, or 
nine sermons preached at Oxford. 

'JZaJvlinson, Sir Ile77ry Cresfi^icA^e {horn 1810), isbrother of the above. 

Outline of the History of Assyria ; and several papers on the Interpretation 
of the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Persia, Assyria, and Rabylon. 

lieade, Charles, D.C.L. (born 1814), an English barrister. Peg Woffington; 
Christie Johnstone; Never Too Late to Meud; Jack of All Trades; Love Me 
Little, Love Me Long ; The Cloister and the Hearth. Very Hard Cash, iirst 
contributed to ^4// the Year Round, powerfully exposes the evils of private 
lunatic asylums. His last work is Griffith Gaunt, or Jealousy. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



779 



^eade, John JEJdtnund, dramatist and poet. Cain the Wanderer, The 
Deluge, and Catiline, dramas ; Italy, a poem ; Youth and how it Passed, 
and The Laureate Wreath, &c., poems. 

Heidj Capt, J\fa}'7ie, though he was a naturalized citizen of our country 
and lived for many years here, yet, as he was born in Ireland (1818), and 
did not leave it till he was twenty, and returned to London in 1848, to 
devote himself to novel-writing of the sensational school, may fairly be 
considered as an English author. His works are very numerous ; among 
which are — The Rifle Rangers, 1849; T he Scalp-Hunters, 1850; The Desert 
Home, 1851; The Boy Hunters, lSo2; The Quadroon; The Wood-Rangers, 
1860, &c. &c. 

^usselly William Howard, LL.D. (born 1821), the celebrated cor- 
respondent of the London Times. Letters from the Crimea; My Diary in 
India; My Diary North and South, 1863 ; and the sequel to it, Canada, 
1865. 

Sala, George Aiigiishcs (born 1826), journalist and author ; editor of 
Temple Bar. The Baddington Peerage; The Seven Sons of Mammon; 
Gas-Light and Day-Light in London; Hogarth Papers; America in the 
Midst of Wax,^ 1865, &c. 

Sellar, If. JT., Professor of Greek in the University of St. Andrew's. 
Essay on Lucretius, 1855 ; The Roman Poets of the Republic, 1863 ; in 
which justice is done for the first time to Lucretius and Catullus. 

ScH'ell, "Rev. imiiam, D.D. (born 1815), Principal of St. Peter's Col- 
lege, Rudley. Christian Vestiges of Creation; Dialogues of Plato ; Chris- 
tian Politics; Christian Morals, &c. He has also translated Virgil's 
Georgics, the Agamemnon of JEschylus, and the Odes of Horace, into Eng- 
lish verse. 

SeJt^ellj £JUzabeth Jifisshig (bom 1815), novelist. Amfy Herbert, 1844; 
followed by Gertrude; The Earl's Daughter; The Experience of Life, &c. 
Her last work — and an admirable one it is — is entitled Principles of Edu- 
cation drawn from Nature and Revelation, and applied to Female Education 
in the Upper Classes, 1866. 

Smiles, Samuel (born 1816), editor oi Leeds Times. Industrial Biography; 
Iron- Workers and Tool-Makers; Lives of British Engineers; Self-Help; 
Working-Men's Earnings, Strikes, and Savings, 1861 ; Lives of Boidton and 
Watt, 1865. 

Smith, Goldwin (born 1823), Professor of Modern History in the LTni- 
versity of Oxford. Irish History and Irish Character ; The Empire; The 
Foundation of the American Colonies; Does the Bible sanction American 
Slavery f 1863, — an unanswerable argument against the "sum of all vil- 
lanies ;" Lectures on the Study of History, 1865, — a very valuable little 
treatise.^ His last work (1866) is The Civil War in America, which, 
whether we look at its literary merits, its high moral tone, or the 
thorough knowledge it shows of the subject of which it treats, " is worthy 
of the perusal of most readers and the study of most writers."^ 



1 He was the " American correspondent" of 
the London Daily Telegraph in 1863 and 1864 ; 
and I regret to add that he showed his in- 
herent fondness for fiction, in writing, con- 
stantly, what he meant to be taken for truth, 
but wiiicli was purely the creation of his one- 
sided and wrong-sided brain. 

2 Professor Smith is another noble English- 



man who should be remembered with grati- 
tude by every American, for his efforts, through 
the press, to set before the English public the 
great principles that were involved in our 
struggle with the slaveholders' rebellion, 
1861-65. 

3 The Nation, in its notice of it, June 8, 
1806. 



780 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



S^nith, ^ev. ^ic?iard S^enry, of Stoke-upon-Trent, has published two 
very valuable works, — Expositions of the Cartoons of Raphael, illustrated 
by photographs ; and Expositions of Great Pictures, similarly illustrated. 
These valuable works enable any one to see and richly enjoy the great 
works of art which they so fully interpret, without going to the British 
Museum or the South Kensington Gallery.^ 

Smit?f,, WiUiafn, LL.D. (born 1814), deserves honorable mention for 
what he has done for classical education. His Dictionary of Greek and 
Roman Biography and Mythology, 3 volumes ; Dictionary of Greek and 
Roman Geography, 2 volumes; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Anti- 
quities; and liis Dictionary of the Bible, 3 volumes, leave nothing to be 
desired upon these subjects. Most of tbese works have been abridged 
for school use. He has also published School Histories of England, Greece, 
and Rome. 

So^nerville, Mrs. Jt^fary (born 1790). The Mechanism of the Heavens, 
1831 ; The Connection of the Physical Sciences, 1834; Physical Geography, 
1862. In ]835 she was elected an honorary member of the "Eoyal 
Astronomical Society." She is now (1866), in her seventy -seventh year, 
preparing a new work, embodying all the latest results of science. 

Speke, Capt. J'o?tn jffanning . Journal of the Discovery of the Sources 
of the Nile, 1863. His achievements have been undoubtedly great; but 
it is to be regretted that he speaks so disparagingly of other African 
explorers. 

Spencer, Ile7'bert (born in Derby, 1820), a writer on biology, psychology, 
and kindred subjects. Social Statics, London, 1850; Principles of Psy- 
chology, 1855 ; Essays, Scientific, Political, and Specidative, first series, 1857 ; 
second series, 1863. TJiese works have been reprinted in this country, — 
the Essays under the titles Illustratixjns of Universal Progress, and Essays, 
Moral, Political, and Esthetic. Mr. Spencer is a graceful writer and a 
powerful and earnest thinker, and throughout our struggle with the 
slaveholders and their supporters his sympathies were entirely with the 
cause of freedom and progress. 

Stan?iope, The 'Right Jloti. Thilf'p Henry, Barl (born 1805), his- 
torian and essayist (better known under the title of Lord Mahon). JAfe 
of Belisarius; War of the Sjmnish Succession; History of England from the 
Peace of Utrecht."^ He has also written many articles in the Quarterly 

Review. 

Slanlejy, Rev. Arthur ^enrhj'n, D.D. (born 1815), Professor of Eccle- 
siastical History, Oxford, and Dean of Canterbury. First became known 
by his admirable Life of Dr. Arnold, under whom he was educated. Sub- 
sequently he has published Historiccd Memorials of Canterbury ; Sinai and 
Palestine; Lectures on the Jewish Church; Sermons on Vcci^ious Subjects; 
Sermons preached before H R. H. Prince of Wales during his Tour in the 
East; History of the Jewish Captivity, &c., — all works of enduring value. 

Stirling, William (born 1818), is the author of The Annals and Artists 
of Spain, 1848 ; Cloister Life of Charles V., 1852 ; Velasquez and his Works, 
1855. For thirteen years he has been M.P. for Perth. 



1 I am surprised that some of onr book- 
eellers have not, apparently, become ac- 
quainted with these l)eautiful and instructive 
books, publislied by .James Nisbet & Co. They 
could be imported for five or six dolhirs each! 



2 An edition of this has been published iu 
this country, the value of which is much en- 
hanced by notes by the late Professor Henry 
Reed, of the University of Pennsylvania. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



781 



StricA'land, M'fss Agnes (born 1806), is the author of Iavp^ of the Queens 
of Enr/lavd and Scofland, and The Bachelor Kinf/s of Enr/land. She has 
also written many books for youth ; such as Stories from History, Illustrious 
JBritish Children, Hie Rival Crusoes, &c. 

Simmer, ^ev, Jb/m :Bird, D.D. (1780-1862), Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. Apostolical Preaching, 1815; Records of Creation, 1816; Examina- 
tion of St. Paul's Epistles; Sermons on Christian Faith ; Evidences of Chris- 
tianity; Practical Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles, 9 vohmies, &c. 

Swam, Charles (born 1803), Manchester, a poet. Metrical Essays, 1827; 
TJie Mind, and other Poems, 18ol ; Dryburgh Abbey, 1832, — a poem on the 
death of Walter Scott; Dramatic Chapters, and other Poems, 1847; Eng- 
lish Melodies, 1849 ; Letters of Laura d'Auverne, and other Poems, 1853. 
His verses are both musical and healthy in tone. 

Swlnbu7^ney Alger7i07i Charles, a recent poet of much original power. 
His first work was a volume of two poems, in a dramatic form, — The 
Queen Mother, and Rosamond, — which were full of promise. Then came 
Atalanta in Calydon, 1864, — a tragedy founded on a Greek story and 
after the Greek form and manner, and very successfully done ; and 
Chastelard, a tragedy, 1866. The subject of this is one of the numerous 
flirtations of Mary Queen of Scots ; but it is not equal in merit to the 
preceding work. 

2a/ylor, ire7iry (born about 1805), a dramatist and essayist. Philip van 
Artevelde, 1834, — a very fine drama, founded on the history of the famed 
brewer of Ghent; Edwin. the Fair, 1843, — founded on early English his- 
tory. Besides these. The Eve of Conquest, and other Poems, 1847 ; Notes 
from Life, 1848 ; Notes from Books, 1849 ; The Virgin Widow, a Poem, 
1850.1 

Baylor, 2'oin (born 1817), Secretary to the Board of Health, is the author 
of several popular dramatic pieces; as. Still Waters P^n, Deep; Victims; 
An Unequal Match; also, contributions to Punch; also, Memorials of 
Haydon, the painter; of C. R. Leslie; and Life and Times of Sir Joshua 
Reynolds. 

2'e7i7ie7it, Sir Ja77ies ^77te7^S07i (born 1804), a barrister, and one of the 
Secretaries to the Board of Trade. History of Modern Greece; History of 
Belgium; History of Ceylon, — the results of his five years' residence in 
that island ; also, Christianity in Ceylon. 

Te7i7ij>S07i, I^rederick, is a brother of the poet-laureate, and has given 
some pleasant poems in a volume entitled Days and Hours. Of these, 
the Ode to the Cicada is very spirited and beautiful.^ Very refined, too, 
and happily conceived, are the lines on 

WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 



Oh, if no faces were beheld on earth 

But toiling manhood and repining age, 
No welcome eyes of innocence and mirth 

To look upon us kindly, who would wage 
The gloomy battle for himself alone, 

Or through the dark of the o'erhanging 
cloud 
Look Avistfully for light? Who would not 
groan 

Beneath his daily task, and weep aloud ? 



But little children take us by the hand. 

And gaze with trustful cheer into our eyes; 
Patience and fortitude beside us stand 

In woman's shape, and waft to heaven our 
sighs : 
The guiltless child holds back the arm of guilt 

Upraised to strike, and woman may atone 
With sinless tears for sins of man, and melt 

The damning seal when evil deeds are done. 



i 'Rend imi\v\ic\cin the Xorth British Beview,\ 2 gome extracts may be seen in Stoddard's 
December, 1865. I Later English Poets. 

66 



782 



SUPPLEMENTARY AUTHORS. 



Thirlwall, 'Jlev. Connop (born 1797), Bishop of St. David's. His His- 
tory 0/ Greece, 1845-52, in 8 volumes, gives him high rank for the finished 
erudition it displays. 

T/iOrnbmy, Gco7\qe IKaUer (born 1828), poet and historian. History 
of the Buccaneers, 8 vohmies ; Shakspeare's England. 2 volumes ; Songs of 
the Cavaliers and Roundheads; Nature and Art at Home and Abroad ; Bri- 
tish Artists, from Hogarth to Tamer; Haunted London, 1865. For some 
years he was art-critic to the Athenceum. 

2'7'oUope, ;^7ii?t07\y (born 1815), a novelist, and holding a position in the 
General Post-OfHce, is the son of Frances, the famous satirist of American 
manners and customs. He began his literary career with Irish stories, — 
The Macdermotts of BaUycloran, 1847 ; and The Kellys and the O' Kellys, 
1848 ; which were ibllowed by works portraying English life, — life among 
young Englishmen, and life among English clergymen, — TJie Warden, 
1855; The Three Clerks, 1856; Barchester Towers; Doctor lltorne, 1858; 
The Bertrams, 1860; Framley Parsonage, 1861 ; Orley Farm, 1862; The 
Small House at Allington, 1864 ;i The Belton Estate, 1866; The Claver- 
ings, 1867. 

Trollojye, J^rances M. (1779-1863), a novelist. Iler maiden name was 
Milton ; her husband a barrister, but unsuccessful. In 1828 they re- 
moved to this comitry. Soon after their return home, in 1832, she pub- 
lished her tirst work, — Domestic Life of the Americans.'^ This was fol- 
lowed by llie Refugee in America. Her husband dying in 1835, she 
devoted her time to literature for the support of herself and family, and 
volume after volume appeared from her pen in rapid succession ; so that 
at the time of her death, which occurred at Florence, she had written 
about 100 volumes. They are generally characterized by much ability, 
but marred by a coarse, unfeminine style. The names of some of her 
works are — Belgium and Westei'n Germany; Fashionable Life in Paris; 
The Widow Married; The Vicar of Wrexhill; Petticoat Government; The 
Barnabys in America, &c. ; The Laurringtons, &c. 

Trollope, T/iomas ^dolp/iies (born 1810), a London barrister, another 
son of Frances. Complete History of the Church, 1834 ; Summer in Brit- 
tany, 1840; Summer in Western France, 1841; Girlhood of Catharine de 
Medici, 1866 ; A Decade of Italian Women, 1859 ; Paul the Pope and Paul 
the Friar, 1860; Marietta, a novel, 1862; History of the Commonwealth of 
Florence, 1866, &c. 

Tulloc?i^ 'Her. Jb/m, D.D. (born 1833), Principal of St. Mary's College, 
at St. Andrew's. Being and Attributes of God; Theism; Leaders of the 
Reformation. He has also been a frequent contributor to the British 
Quarterly and the North British Review. 

jTigrHer, Charles, a recent poet of some merit : his Sonnets are especially 
to be commended. 

Vaiff/hcai, H,er. Hobcrl, D.D. (born 1798), Principal of the Lancashire 
Independent College, Manchester, and editor of the British Quarterly Re- 
view. Life and Opinions of Wycliffe; England under the Stuarts; Revolu- 
tions in English History;^ The Age of Great Cities; The Age of Chris- 
tianity; Congregationalism, &c. 



1 Read an article on his novels in the North 
Brilisfi Review, vol. xl. (1864), p. 369. 

2 Though very caustic, and writteo in a 
style, generally, of broad caricatine, it told 
some plain truths, which we might well profit 
by ; for instance, our nasty and vile habit of 
tobacco chewing and smoking. No class of 



persons seem to be so utterly selfish and so re- 
gardless of others' comfort as toliacco-smokers. 
If they will use the filthy weed, let them use 
it where they will not annoy others. 

3 Vol. I. Revoluticms of Eace. ; II. Revolutions 
in Religio7i ; III. Decline of Royalism. 



SUPPLEMENTAR Y A UTHORS. 783 

Whewelly jRev. imimm, D.D. (1795-1866), Vioe-Chancellor of the 
University of Cambridge. A History of the Inductive Sciences, 3 volumes, 
— a work of standard value; Astronomy and General Physics, — one of the 
Bridgewater Treatises; The Platonic Dialogues for English Readers ; Lec- 
tures on Systematic Morality, &e. &c. He was the son of a carpenter in 
Lancashire, and rose to his great eminence by the force of his personal 
character and indomitable industry. 

yrillmott, 'Rev. Robert AHs (died May 27, 1863). Lives of the Eng- 
lish Sacred Poets, 1838 ; Pictures of Christian Life, 1841 ; Poems, 1848 ; 
The Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature, 1851 ; The Po&ts of 
•the Nineteenth Century, 1857 ; The English Sacred Poets, 1862. 

7rorslej^y 'P^nlij) Stanhope. Poems and Translations; The Odyssey of 
Homer, translated into English verse in the Spenserian stanza, 1862, — 
the best translation of the Odyssey, I think, that has yet appeared.' 
Early in 1866 he published the first twelve books of the Iliad, in the 
same stanza. Pie died of consumption. May 8, 1866. 

TateSj JEJdmund Ilodgso7i (born 1831), editor of Temple Bar Magazine^ 
is the author of My Haunts and their Frequenters ; After Office Hours; 
Broken to Harness, &c. He is also a constant contributor to All the Year 
Round. 

Xonffey Charlotte J^^fay (born 1823), is the accomplished authoress of 
, many works of fiction of a very interesting and instructive character. 
The best of these are— The Heir of Redely ffe ; Heart's Ease; The Daily 
Chain; Hopes and Fears, or Scenes from the Life of a Spinster. She is 
also the authoress of Kings of England; and of Landmarks of History, 
Ancient, Middle Ages, and Modern, 3 volumes. Her latest Avork (1866) 
is, The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, — pronounced her best work of fiction. 
To talents of a high order she adds large benevolence, — apjlropriating 
the profits of many of her works to objects of Christian charity. 

1 See selections from it in the Compendium of Classical Literature. 



INDEX 



TO 



PEKSONS AND SUBJECTS. 



[Note. — The names of the Principal Authors are in largo capitals ; those of the Supplementary, 
in small capitals; and the titles of books, in italics.] 



Page 

Abercromdie, John 402 

Abolitionists, English note, 212 

Abou Ben Adhem 541 

Addison on Sickness and Death note, 45 

Addison's Writings, Drake on 258 

Adeline Mowbry, by Mrs. Opie 463 

Adonaisof Shelley 90 

Adventurer, The, contributors to note, 18 

Knox on The 87 

Adversity needful for us 500 

Advice to the Teens, Taylors note. 111 

.^schylus and Shakspeare 61 

iEschylus, by Sewall 779 

Affliction, Chalmers on 375 

its lessons 689 

Africa and the East, by Noel 777 

Age and Youth 222 

Age of Great Cities 782 

Age of Reason, Paine"s...- 107 

Agnes, by Mrs. Oliphant 777 

Agnes Grey, bj' Anne Bronte 501 

AiKiN, John 155 

AiNswoRTH, William Francis 759 

Aixs worth, William Harrison 759 

AiRD, Thomas 759 

on Moir 442, 445 

Alashtar, an Arabian Tale 405 

Alastor 90 

Albert, the Prince Consort 759 

on the Unity of the Race 202 

Alexander, Cecil Frances 760 

Alford, Henry 760 

ALISON, ARCHIBALD 271 

ALISON, ARCHIBALD, JR 644 

Allinuham, William , 760 

Almshouse Physician 195 

Altars, Hearths, and Graves 671 

American Freedom 367 

Amusements, Alison on 273 

Amy Herbert, by Sewell 779 

Anacreon Moore 449 

Ancirnt Christianity, Taylor's 622 

Anciint Mariner 217 

Andre, Major. Seward's lines on 54 

Angi'l in the House 778 

Angel World, and other Poems 761 

Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Bosworth's 762 

Anglo-Saxons, by Palgrave 778 

An Hour with Thee 184 

66 



Page 

Annals of the Parish 294 

Anster Fair 406 

Anstice, Joseph 565 

Anti-Melancholy 366 

Anti-Shivery Cause in America 384 

Apocalyptic Sketches, by Cumming 706 

AjHilogy for the Bible 75 

Apostolical Preaching 781 

Apostolical Succession, by S.Smith 368 

Arabia, Palgrave's travels in 778 

Arians, history of, by Newman 776 

Arm-Chalr, the Old 742 

Arnold, Dr., on Coleridge.. note, 218 

Arnolk, Edwin 760 

ARNOLD, MATTHEW 755 

ARNOLD, THOMAS 301 

Arnold, Thomas 760 

Arnold's opinion of Miss Austen 72 

Article, Di finite, of the New Testament 75 

Ascham aiid Lady Jane Grey 613 

As.^yria, Rawlinson on 778 

Atalanta in Calydon 781 

Atmospherical l'henom,ena, by Dick 520 

Auld Robin Gray 137 

Aurora Leigh 582 

Austen, J.\ne 72 

Austin Eliot 772 

Autumn, Address to 80 

Characteristics of 92 

Evening, by PoUok 146 

ATTOUN, WiLLI.iM Edmonstoune 760 

Babylon, Rich's 157 

Babi/lon the Great, by Mudie 405 

Baby's Debut, by W. W. Smith 288 

Bacon, Lord, vindicated by Dixon 766 

Bacon's Philosophy, by Craik ; 765 

Bailey, Philip J.\mes 761 

Baillie, Captain, his trial 106 

BAILLIE, JOANNA 436 

Bain, Profes.sor Alexander 761 

Ballantyne, James 761 

Banim, John 402 

Baptism, Baptist Noel on 777 

BARBAULD, ANNA LvETlTIA 129 

Barbauld's. Mrs., Sacred Lyrics 137 

Barham, Richard Harris." 402 

Barnaby Rudge 719 

BARNARD, ANNE 137 

« 785 



786 



INDEX. 



Page 

BARTON, BERNARD 379 

Battle, Byron's lines on 124 

Battle of the Nile, by Bowles 432 

Baviad, The, of Gifford 155 

BAYLY, THOMAS HAYNES 278 

Bayxe, Peter 761 

on Mrs. Browning note, 583 

on Tennvson note, 702 

BEATTIE, JAMES 25 

Beauties of the Bosphorus 778 

Beauty, Byron on , 127 

permanence of. 82 

Beckett, Gilbert Abbott a 565 

Beckford, William 402 

Beddoes, Thomas Lovell 403 

Beggars Petition 53 

Belisarius, Stanhope's Life of 780 

Bell, Charles, Bridgewater Treatise... note, 565 

Bells of Ostend, Bowles 4.35 

Bdton Estate, by TroUope 782 

Beneficence, by Dr. Dick 522 

Bennett, William C. 701 

Bentham, Jeremy 292 

Bertram of Maturin 156 

Bethlehem, Star of 48 

Betrothed Pair 196 

Bible in Spain, by Borrow 761 

Bible, the. Dr. Hall on 169 

Bible, Watson's Apology for 75 

Biographia Literaria 218 

Bishops, Primitive, Whately on 596 

Blackie, John Stuart 761 

BLAIR, HUGH 21 

Blenheim, Battle of 316 

Blessed be Thy Name Forever 250 

Blessington. Countess of 403 

Blind Child of Bloomfield 104 

Blind Man, Bowles's lines on 435 

BLOOMFIELD, ROBERT 102 

Blue Ink, by James Smith 291 

Blue-Stocking Club 53 

Blue Stockings, Smith on 364 

BoNAR, Horatius 692 

Book-keeping, Art of, by Hood 352 

Books, Mrs. Norton's sonnet to 696 

Booksellers, Campbell's opinion of.... note, 334 

Lamb's opinion of. note, 379 

Borrow, George 761 

Borrowers and Lenders 242 

Boswell, James, lines to 69 

Bosworth, Joseph 762 

Bothivell, a Poem 760 

Bower of Spring 76 

BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE 431 

BowRiNG, Sir John 762 

Bowyer, William, anecdotes of. 156 

Boyd, Rev. A. K. H 762 

Boyle, as a Christian t 110 

Bozzy and Piozzi 69 

Bradbury, S. H 762 

Brazil, Southey's History of. 325 

Break, Break, Break 704 

Brewster, Sir David 762 

Bridal-day Song, the Poet's 313 

Bride of Abydos 116 

Bride's Tragedy 403 

Bridge of Sighs 360 

Bridgewater Treatises, what 565 

BRIMLEY, GEORGE 565 

on Archdeacon Hare note, 495 

Bring Flowers 2.55 

British Artists, by Thornbury 782 

British Novelists and their Style 775 

BRONTE, CHARLOTTE 501 

Bronte, Emily and Anne, Death of 501 



Pagb 

Brooks, Charles Shirley 762 

Brook-Side, The, by Milnes 700 

Brother, death of, Heber's lines 143 

Brotherly Love, by Keble 629 

Brother's Grave, Moultrie 671 

Brough, Robert B 762 

BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD 630 

Brown, John 565 

Brown, Thomas 76 

Brown Stout, very fine .394 

Browne, Frances' 763 

Broumie of Bodsbeck, by Hogg 246 

BROWNING, ELIZABETH B 582 

on Beattie 25 

BROWNING, ROBERT 715 

Brunton, Mary 73 

Bryant, Jacob 51 

BRYDGES, SIR EGERTON 264 

on Beattie......... note, 29 

on H. K. White note, 44 

Bubbles, as blown by a child 663 

Bubbles of a Day 524 

Buccaneers, History of. 782 

Buchanan, Robert 763 

Buckingham, J. Silk 565 

BucKLAND, William, Bridgewater Treatise 565 

Buckle, Henry Thomas.. 763 

Bugle-Song, Tennyson's 706 

Buller, C. J., and Erskine note, 106 

Bulls, Irish, by Miss Edgeworth 387 

Bulwer. See Lytton. 

Burial Anthem, Milman 643 

Burleigh, Lord of, Tennyson's... 704 

Bunyan, Arnold on 309 

iiOrd Macaulay on 558 

Burton, John Hill 763 

BuRNES, Alexander 403 

BuRNEY, Frances 403 

Burton, Edward 293 

Butler, Charles 293 

Butler, William Archer 403 

Byron, Lord 115 

on Bowles's Pope note, 432 

Byron's lines on H. K. White 43 

on Rogers.., 506 

on Scott 175 

Cain, the Wanderer 779 

Cairnes, J. E 763 

Calamities of Authors 404 

Caleb Stukeley 568 

Caleb Williams 294 

Calpe Obsessa 431 

Calvary, Cumberland's 58 

Campbell, Lord John 763 

CAMPBELL, THOMAS 334 

Charade on 285 

Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric 22 

Candidate, the, by Crabbe 192 

Candlish, Robert S 763 

Canterbury Ta/es of Mrs. Lee 156 

Canvas-back Ducks 368 

Captain Sword and Captain Pen 5.39 

Carleton, William 763 

CARLYLE. THOMAS 6.50 

CARPENTER, LANT 297 

Carpenter. William Benjamin 763 

Carr, John 293 

Carrington, Noel Thomas 293 

Carter, Elizabeth 51 

Cartoons of Raphael, by Smith 780 

Cary, Henry Francis... 403 

Casa Wappy 442 

Castle of Indolence, Thomson's 28 

Catharine de Medici, by TroUope 782 



INDEX. 



787 



Page 

Candle made a Mason 530 

Caudle, Mrs., liei- Lectures 526 

Cause and Effect, by Brown 76 

Caxtms, The 675 

Celestial Scenery, by Dick 520 

Celestina of Charlotte Smith 49 

Cenci, The, of Shelley 90 

Ceylon, History of. 781 

Chalmkrs, George 155 

CHALMERS, THOMAS 369 

Chambers, Robert 764 

Chambers, William 764 

Chaniouiii, Hymn in the Vale of 219 

Chancellors, Lives of the 763 

Changes from Youth to Age 330 

Channing on Milton , note, 268 

CiiAPONE, Hester 51 

Characteristics of Women 569 

Charlotte Elizabeth 406 

CHARLOTTE SMITH 48 

Charter-House School note, 602 

Chastelard, by Swinburne 781 

Chatham, Lord, on the morning note, 32 

Chaucer, Clarke's edition of. 764 

Child blowing Bubbles 663 

Childe Harold 116 

Childhood. Happiness of .50 

of the Minstrel 30 

Town and Country 312 

Christahel 217 

Christ, his character, by Rogers 680 

Christian character, Whately on 598 

Christian Ptnlosopher, by Dick 520 

Christian the highest style of man, 381 

Christians the ornaments of the world 109 

Christian Vestiges of Creation 779 

CIiHstian Year, Kelde's 625 

Christianity, conversion to 678 

Croly's remarks on 579 

effect of, on poetry 470 

Fruits of, Warren 683 

objections to 601 

Oxford view of 308 

Popish view of 308 

Christopher North's Recreations 471 

Clironicles of Carlingford 777 

Chronicles of Clovernook 524 

Cicero, Forsyth's Life of 768 

Civiliza tion'. History of. Buckle's 7 63 

Civil Society, Ferguson's 73 

Civil War in America, by Smith 779 

Clapperton, Hugh 155 

Clare, John 764 

Cl.ark, Edward Daniel 155 

Clarke, Adam 293 

Clarke, Mary Cowden 764 

Clarkson, Thomas, sonnet to 431 

Classical Studies, value of 403 

Clive, Lord, Gleig's Life of. 769 

Cloister and the Hearth 778 

Cloister Life of Charles V. 780 

Cloud, She'lley-s 92 

Cloud, Sunshine, by Hare 500 

Clough, Arthur Hugh 764 

Cobbett, William 293 

CocKBURN. Henry (Lord) 566 

on Jeffrey note, 410 

Ccelebs in Search of a Wife 204 

Coleman, George, " the younger' 293 

Colenso, John William 764 

COLERIDGE. HARTLEY .•!75 

Coleridge, Henry Nelson 403 

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR 216 

Coleridge's estimate of Southey 316 

Coliseum, Byron's lines on 125 



Paob 

Collier, John Payne 764 

Collier, William Francis 765 

Collier on Lord Byron 11.5, 116 

Collier's remarks on Scott note, 178 

Collins, Nancy, story of. 171 

Collins, Wilkie 765 

Colton, Caleb C 294 

Combe, George 566 

Combe, William 155 

Come, ye Disconsolate...... 456 

Comfort, sonnet by Mrs. Bi-owning 587 

Comic Blackstone 565 

Comic History of England 566 

Coming of Age 498 

Commercial Disburses of Chalmers 369 

Common Blessings, Mrs. Norton 697 

Common Lot, by Montgomery 488 

Communion, Open, Hall on 165 

Compensation, by Tupper 710 

Conclusion of Pleasures of Memory 511 

Congregationalism, by Vaughan 782 

CoNiNGTON, John 765 

Connection of the Physica I Sciences 7 80 

Connoisseur, Knox on the 88 

Conquest of Scinde, by Napier 776 

Consistencj' and Inconsistency 601 

Consolation, sonnet by Mrs. Browning 588 

Consolations in Travel 152 

Constable, Archibald 7iote, 408 

Constantinople, benefits from its capture.. 211 

Consumption, sonnet to 45 

Content, ode to 20 

Contentment, by Helps 713 

Conversion of the Roman Empire 775 

CONYBEARE, W. J 765 

COOK, ELIZA 742 

CooKE," George Wingrove 765 

Cooper, Thomas 765 

" Copperhead" serpent killed note, 94 

Coquettes, Paradise of. 76 

Corinth, Byron's lines on 119 

Corn-Law Rhj'mer 397 

Cottle on Hannah More note, 204, 205 

Cottle, Joseph, a noble bookseller 419 

Country, Love of, by Scott 182 

" Country Parson," the 762 

"Country Par.son" on Sydney Smith 356 

Country's Hope 215 

Course of Time 144 

Covetousness, its tendency 522 

Cowper, Haley's Life of 156 

■ Lamb's opinion of 242 

Cowper's Grave, Mrs. Browning on 588 

CoxE, William 155 

CRABBE, GEORGE 192 

Cradle Song of the Poor 611 

Craig, Miss Isa 765 

Craik, George Lillie 765 

on Mrs. Browning note, 583 

Creation's Testimony toils God 778 

Crescent and the Cross 568 

Cricket, C. Smith on the 50 

Crimea, Letters from, by Russell 779 

Crock of Gold, Tupper's 710 

Croker, John Wilson 566 

onCrabbe _ 194 

CROLY, GEORGE 576 

Cromwell, Carlyle's Life of 651 

Cromwell's Personal Appearance.. 655 

Crowe, Catharine Stevens 766 

Cruickshank's remarks offMrs. Maclean... 275 

CUMBERLAND, RICHARD 58 

Cumming. John 766 

CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN 310 

on Scott's sickness note, 177 



788 



INDEX. 



Pase 

Curiosities of Literature 404 

Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell , 501 

Curse of Keliama 315 

Dance of Children 476 

Darley, George 404 

Darnley, Laing on his murder 73 

Dartmoor, by Carrington 293 

Darwin, Erasmus ^ 51 

David, Irving's character of. 231 

Davis, Jefferson, the arch-traitor note, 361 

DAYY, HUMPHRY 152 

Day and Night Songs, by Allingham 760 

Days and Hours 781 

Dean of the Faculty it 368 

Death, antidote to the fear of. note, 45 

at the Toilet 683 

Hour of, Mrs. Hcmans 254 

Death-Bed, Hood's lines on 347 

December Morning, sonnet on 54 

Decision of Character 331 

De CHford, the Constant Man 406 

D(fence of Guenevere 775 

" Delia Cruscans" 155 

Delta of Blackwood 441 

Demaus, Robert 766 

Deniaus' remarks on Scott note, 178 

De Mnntfort, Miss Baillie"s 436 

Dennis, John, on Robertson 458 

DE QUINCEY, THOMAS 544 

on Coleridge 217 

Descent of Libert if 5.39 

Desire, Arnold's lines on 758 

Desmond of Charlotte Smith 49 

Despair, Hope, by Mrs. Norton 697 

De Fere, the Independent Man 406 

Dfvereux 674 

Devil upon Ttoo Sticks 155 

Diary of a Physician 682 

Dibdiu on Coleridge note, 219 

DICK, THOMAS 519 

DICKENS, CHARLES 718 

' — on Adelaide Procter note, 609 

Robertson's remarks on 461 

Dictionary of the Bible, by Smith 780 

Dirge, a, by Leigh Hunt 540 

Disappointment, ode to 46 

Display, Jane Taylors 112 

Disraeli, Benjamix 766 

Disraeli, Isaac 404 

Diversions f>f Purley 75 

Divines, Old English 309 

Dixon, William Hepworth 766 

DoBELL, Sydney 766 

Doctor, The, by Southey •. 316 

Doctor Thome 782 

Doctrine of the Real Presence 778 

Does the Bible sanction Slavery? 779 

Dogmatism, what 525 

Dogs, Smith on 364 

Dombey and Smi 719 

Domestic Affections, Hemans's 2.50 

Domestic Life of the Americans 782 

Donaldson, John William 767 

Don Juan 116 

Doran, John 767 

Douglas, tragedy of. 52 

Dove in the Eagle's JVest 783 

Dove on the Cross, by Keble 627 

D"0yly, George....^ 404 

DRAKE, NATHAJT. 257 

• Dr., on Bloomfield note, 104 

Dr., on Haley note, 156 

Dr., on Knox's E.ssays note, 85 

Dr., on The Observer 59 



Page 

Dramatis Personse, by Browning 715 

Dream of the Opium-Eater 546 

Dress and Beauty 363 

Drury-Lane Theatre, H. Smith on 391 

Dryburgh Abbey, by Swain 781 

Dry Sticks Faggoted 613 

Duenna, by Sheridan 75 

Duncan's lines on Crabbe 192 

Duty, Coleridge on 228 

Wordsworth's ode to 425 

Dyce, Alexander 767 

DYxMOND, JONATHAN 188 

on Paley note, 36 

Eagle and Serpent 94 

EarVs Daughter, by Sewell 779 

Early Recollections 508 

Rising, Lord Chatham on note, 32 

Earth a Pilgrimage, Trench 687 

East, Byron's lines on 123 

Echo and Silence 270 

Eclipse of Faith 680 

Economy, Miss Edgeworth's views on 390 

EDGEWORTH, MARIA 384 

Edinburgh Review, Jeffrey's account of... 407 

Review, origin of. 354 

Education, Carpenter on 297 

for Females 207 

of the Heart 185 

Lord Brougham on 633 

Mrs. Barbauld on 130 

Education, Liberal, Knox's 85 

Edivinthe Fair 781 

Egeria, the Sxnrit of Nature 730 

Egerton, Francis 566 

" Egotism," by Jerrold 525 

Elia,hy Lamb -.... 230 

Eliot, George. See Evans 767 

Elizabeth (Queen) and Cecil 616 

Elizabethan Age, Literature of 159 

Ellen Fitzarthur, by Mrs. Southey 479 

ELLIOTT, EBENEZER 397 

Ellis, Sarah Stickney 767 

Ellis, William , 767 

Elphinstone, Mountstuart 767 

Emigrant's Song 296 

Emmeline of Charlotte Smith 49 

Empedocles on Etna 755 

Empire that is lasting 563 

Endymion 79 

Energy, Croly's lines on 581 

England, her true mission 325 

England in Time of War 766 

English Commonwealth, by Palgrave 778 

Language and Literature, Craik's... 765 

Literature, Collier's 765 

English, Past and Present 687 

English Stage, Malone's 73 

English, the, the former slavery of 562 

Eothen, by Kinglake 772 

Epicurean, by Moore 450 

Epiphany, Heber 143 

Epipsychidion 90 

Epitaph, a fulsome, by Jerrold 525 

on Coleridge..! note, 218 

ERSKINE, THOMAS 106 

Esmond, by Thackeray 603 

Essayists, periodical 85 

Essays, Herbert Spencer's 780 

Essai/s in Rhyme, Taylor's 112 

Ethics of the Dust 734 

"Ettric'k Shepherd," the 246 

Etymological Discoverie.s 3-8 

Eugene Aram C74 

Europe, Alison's IIi^tory of 645 



INDEX. 



789 



Page 

Enroppan Civilization, progress of. 577 

Eustace Conway 775 

Evans, Mary A 767 

Eve of St. Aijnes 80 

Evening, Keble's lines on 627 

Evening Clonil, a sonnet by Wilson 479 

l^rayer at a Girls' School 256 

Ei'i'iiings at Home 155 

E.rumiiier, Tfie 537 

Example, hj'pocritieal 228 

E.rcerpfa Tiutoritoia 265 

E.ccursio)}, by Wunlswortli 419 

Expositions of Great I'ictures 7 SO 

Faber, Frederick William 767 

Faith, firmness of. 640 

religious, blessings of 153 

Fame, Miss Baillies lines on 440 

Families, Founders of 619 

Family Legend, Miss Baillie's 436 

Family Name of Lamb 238 

Farewell, Byron's lines on 118 

Kingsley's lines on 755 

Farmer's Boy 102 

Father is Coming 670 

Feasts of the Poets, Hunt's 539 

Fellows, Charles 767 

Female Education, by H. More 204, 207 

Female Education, Edgeworth on 390 

Education, Smith on 357 

Female, the Crazy 105 

Ferguson, Adam 73 

Ferrier, James F '767 

I'errier, Mary 566 

Festus, by Bailey 761 

Feudal System, by Hallam 5-33 

Fields, the, Ruskin on 735 

Filial Affection of Lamb 245 

Fireplaces, by Smith 366 

Fireside, my Own, Watts 664 

Fire- Worshippers, by Moore 4.50 

Fii-st-Born, Death of the 662 

Fisherman, Funeral of, by Scott 190 

Fishing, pleasures of 152 

Fitzgerald's edition of Lamb note, 2-38 

Five Pounds loaned by Caudle 527 

Flood of Thessaly 636 

Florence Miscellany 155 

Flowers, Leigh Hunt's lines on ■. 541 

Flowers of the Field, by Keble 628 

Footpad, a Charade 284 

Footprints of the Creator, Miller 515 

Forbes, James D.ivid 768 

Ford, Richard 566 

Foreign Travel, advantages of. 714 

Forest Sanctuary, Hemans 251 

Foresters, by Wilson 472 

Forget me not, by Mrs.Opie 463 

Forgive and Forg«t 711 

Forsyth, Joseph 73 

Forsyth, William 768 

Fossil Reptiles, by Owen : 777 

Foster, Johx 329 

Foster, John, of Newcastle 76S 

Foundation of the American Colonies 779 

Founders of Families 619 

Fox, Charles James 52 

Franklin, John 404 

Franklin, Foster's character of 3;]2 

Eraser, James Baillie 566 

Frederick the Great, by Carlyle 651 

Freedom, American 367 

Free Press, Blessings of a 202 

French Invasion, by Smith 365 

French Revolution, Mackintosh's 198 



Pagb 

FrERE, J. HOOKHAM 404 

Friend after Friend Departs 489 

Friends in Council 712 

Friends, Pullok on 146 

Frientlship, Landor on 618 

Friendships in (leaven 599 

FROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY 745 

Fuimus 286 

Funeral of the Lovers of '•Rimini" 540 

Funeral of the Poor Man 66 

Furniture in the Middle Ages 535 

Gaffer Gray, song of. 52 

Galt, John 294 

Gambling, Landor on 618 

Garden and Library 750 

Garrick, Murphy"s Life of 53 

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn 768 

Gawtrey, the Coiner 676 

Geneva, Alpine Storm at 120 

Calm Night at 119 

Genius inferior to many qualities 209 

Genoa, Siege of, Arnold on 305 

Gentleman, the Christian 497 

Eliza Cook on the 744 

Ruskin on the 738 

George IV., Leigh Hunt on 537 

George the Third, last days of. 607 

Georges, the Four 603 

Georges, the Four, Landor's epigram on... 537 

Georgics, British, Grahame's 63 

Gertrude, by Sewell.. 779 

Gertrude of Wyoming 334 

Gibbon's History, Milman's edition 639 

Gifford, William 155 

GiLFiLLAN, George 708 

on Campbell note, 335 

on Lord Brougham note, 631 

GiLFiLLAN, Robert 566 

Gillies, John 294 

Gillies's estimate of Beattie 27 

Gilpin, William 52 

Ginevra, by Rogers 512 

Gladiator, the Dying 117 

Gladstone, William Ewart 768 

Gleig, George Robert 769 

Glenburnie, Mrs. Hamilton's 73 

Gloomy Winter's noiv Atva' 75 

Glory, means to acquire true.; 503 

wheie to be left 333 

God rules nations 210 

God's rewards great 735 

Godiva, Tennyson's 708 

Godwin, William 294 

Golden Precepts of Prince Albert 759 

Golden Violet, by Maclean 275 

Good educed from evil 210 

Good Tidings of Bloomfield 103 

Good Time Coming , 731 

Goodness, Landor on 618 

Gordian Knot, The 762 

Gordon, Lord George, his trial 106 

Gore, Catharine Frances 769 

Gospel of the Pentateuch 752 

Gospel, True Preaching of 307 

GRAHAMB, JAMES 63 

Wilson's lines to 478 

Grandmother, Barton's lines on 383 

Grant, Annie 294 

Grant, J.\mes 769 

Grass, Ruskin on the 735 

Gratt.\n, Thomas Colley 769 

Grave of the Last Saxon, Bowles 432 

Gray, David 769 

Gray-.Vead, the Young 481 



790 



INDEX. 



Page 

Gi-eatest Plague of Life 775 

Greece, Byron's lines on 121 

itsLiterature, &c., by Mure 776 

Mitford's History of 156 

Greek Literatiu-e, by Donaldson 767 

Greenland, by Montgomery 485 

Griffin, Gerald , 404 

Grifith Gaunt, or Jealousy 778 

Grote, George • 769 

Gnlly, John, Smith's epigram on 698 

GuRNEY, Joseph John 404 

GUTHRIE, THOMAS 665 

Gypsies in Spain 761 

Habit, power of 77 

Hale, Sir Matthew, a Christian 110 

Haley, William 156 

Hall, Basil 404 

Hall, Mrs. S. C 770 

Hall, Robert 164 

Hall, Samuel Carter 769 

HALLAM, ARTHUR HENRY 532 

HALLAM, henry 532 

Hamilton, Elizabeth 73 

Hamilton, Sir William 566 

Hamilton's Philosophy, Mill on 775 

Hamlet — Ophelia, by Coleridge 378 

Hannay, James 770 

Hannay's Memoir of Thackeray 603 

Happiness, PoUuk on 145 

hare, tlie two Brothers 495 

Harp of Zion, of Knox 156 

IIauri.-^, John 770 

ILiuntrd London 782 

Hazlitt, William 158 

Head, Francis Bond 770 

Head-Stone, the, by Wilson 472 

Heart, Education of the 185 

HEBER, REGINALD 138 

Heber's Sacred Lyrics 144 

Hebrew Mother •. 252 

Poetry 447 

Helen Burns, by Miss Bronte 502 

Helen, lines to 285 

Hdga, a poem 404 

HELPS, ARTHUR 712 

HEMANS, FELICIA 250 

Henry the Eighth, Froude on 746 

Herbert, Rev. William 404 

Here's to Thee, my Scottish Lassie 673 

Hermit, Beattie's. 33 

Herodotus, by Rawlinson 778 

Herring, Richard, on Crolj' note, bll 

Herschel, John Frederick William 770 

Hervey, Thomas Kibble 566 

Hindoo Rajah, Mrs. Hamilton's 73 

HiNTON, John Howard 770 

Historic Associations, by Rogers 509 

Hochelaga, by Warburton 568 

Hodges, Sydney 770 

H'/jarth Pii])e.rs 779 

Hogarth, William, anecdotes of 777 

HOGG, JAMES 246 

Hohenlinden 342 

HoLCROFT, Thomas 52 

Holland, Lord , 404 

Home, John 52 

Home in the Heart 744 

Home of Taste 399 

Homer and the Homeric Age 769 

Homer and Milton, Arnold on 756 

and Milton, compared 166 

but One, by Talfourd 468 

translated by Newman 777 

Homeric Ballads, by Maginn 405 



Pagk 

Homer's Translators 755 

Homes of British Poets 657 

Homespun Family 171 

HOOD, THOMAS 344 

Hook, Theodore Edward 405 

lines on Shelley 90 

Hook, Walter Farquhar 770 

Hope, Thomas 294 

Hope beyond the Grave 338 

Hope, Bowles's sonnet to 434 

Hope, Despair, by Mrs. Norton 697 

Hope on, Hope ever 667 

Hope, Pleasures of 334 

Horace, Coningt-on's translation 765 

translated by Newman 777 

translated by Sewall 779 

Horie Bihlicse 293 

Horse PauUnse 35 

Horne, Richard Henry 770 

Horne, Thomas H.\btwell 770 

HoRSLEY, Samuel 52 

Hours of Idleness 116 

Hours, their worth, by Milnes 701 

Housekeeper, the 237 

Houses in the Middle Ages 535 

" How sweetly flow'd the gospel's sound" 762 
Howell, Mrs. Elizabeth, her lines on Mil- 
ton note, 760 

HOWITT, MARY 667 

HOWITT, WILLIAM 657 

HowsoN, John Saul 771 

Hughes. Thomas 771 

Ilulsean Lectures, what? note, 760 

Human and Divine Law 149 

Life, by Rogers 511 

Humble Wisli, Beattie's 32 

Humility, Montgomery on 489 

Hnnchback, The, by Knowles 590 

Hunqarian Brothers 295 

HUNT, LEIGH 537 

on Sydney Smith 356 

on Wolcott 69 

Hunter, Anne 156 

HuRD, Richard 52 

Hymn of the Universe, Croly 581 

Hymns and Fireside Verses 667 

Hymns for Childhood 251 

Hymns in Prose for Children 129 

Hymns of Faith and Hope 692 

Hypatia, Kingsley's 752 

Hyperion 80 

Idler in Italy 403 

" I lay my sins on Jesus" 693 

Iliad, variety of characters in 469 

Ilias Americana in Nuce 651 

Illustrations of Lying 463 

Imaginary Biography, Brydges 265 

Imaginary Conversations 612 

Immortality, Byron's lines on 128 

Wordsworth on 428 

Improvisatrice, of Maclean 275 

Inchbald, Mrs. Elizabeth 156 

Inconsistency in Expectations 133 

India, Heber's journey through 1-39 

History of 767 

Indifference to be dreaded 56 

Inductive Sciences, by Whewell 782 

Industrial Biography 779 

I never- was a Favorite 280 

Infiint, Coleridge's lines to 221 

Infant Miruls, Poems for 112 

Ingelow, Jean 771 

Ingoldsby Legends 402 

Inheriting the Earth, what 500 



INDEX. 



791 



Paoe 

In Memnriam 706 

Innes, Cosmo 771 

"111 the cross of Christ I glory" 762 

Ion, i\ tragedy, by Talfourd 468 

Ireland, John 405 

Irish Melodies, bv Moore 440 

IRVIN(}, EDWARD 230 

Mrs. Olipbaut's Life of. 777 

Irviii<i, M'asliiiigtoii, on woniau note, 486 

Imbella, of Keats 80 

I saw thy form in youthful prime 455 

Is it not sweet to think hereafter? 454 

Isle of Palms, by Wilson 472 

Israelites delivered 141 

Itali/, hy Rogers 507 

Forsyth's Travels in 73 

Lewis's tour in 73 

"It is good to be here". 67 

Jacob Faith fid. by Marryatt 405 

James. George P. R, 771 

James, John Angell 566 

Janies"s opinion of Stewart 157 

JAMESON, ANNA 56a 

.Tane de Muntfort, description of 437 

June Eiirc 501 

Jeal(mx Wiff\ bv Miss Pardoe 778 

Jeffrey; francis 407 

Jefrey, Mnuioir of, by Playfair 74 

Jeffrey, Lord, on Moore's poetry note, 449 

on Procter's poetry 636 

Jeffrey's matured opinions of Wordsworth 

note, 421 

remarks on Mrs. Hemans note, 251 

Jekden, William 771 

JERROLB. DOUGLAS 524 

Jerusalem before the Siege 640 

Jessie, the Flower of Dumhlane 75 

Jewish Captivity, Stanley on 780 

Jews, Crolv's remarks on the 580 

Milman's History of 639 

Jewsburt, Geraldine Endsor 771 

Joan of Arc 315 

Joltn Halifax, Gentleman 776 

Johnson, Dr., as a Lexicographer note, 261 

Drake on 260 

his opinion of Blair note, 22 

in Rejected Addresses 394 

on association note, 509 

Johnson's Lives, Mackintosh on 199 

opinion of Crabbe Tt)3 

opinions of Mrs. Carter 51 

Jolm. IFoot^fiY, a tragedy 236 

Joyce, Rev. J 297 

Judgment of Paris, Beattie's 26 

Judgment to Come, Irving's 231 

Jugurtha in Prison 98 

Julian and Maddalo 90 

Juvenile Ignorance and Misery 665 

Kataxagh, Julia 771 

KEATS, JOHN 79 

KEBLE, JOHN 625 

Keightley, Thomas 7^1 

Kemble, Franci'.s Anne 771 

Kidd, John, Bridgewater Treatise note, 565 

Kilmeny"s Return 247 

Kindliness, Robertson on 461 

Kingdom of Christ, Whately's 594 

KiNGLAKE, Alexander William 772 

KINGSLEY, CHARLES 752 

on Shelley and Byron 91 

KiNGSLEY, Henry 772 

Kitten, Miss Baillie's lines on 4-37 

KiTTO, John 567 



Paor 

Knight, Charles 772 

Knight, Henry Gally 405 

Knowledge, pleasures of ac<iuiriiig 271 

tendency of 520 

KNOWLES, HERBERT 67 

KNOWLES. JAMES SHERIDAN 590 

KNOX, VICESIMUS 85 

Knox, William 156 

Kuzzilbash, by Eraser 566 

Labor, its dignity 185 

Milnes"s lines on 699 

true dignity of, Ilowitt 660 

Lacon 294 

Lady Jane Grey and Aschain 613 

Lady of the Lake, Scott's 176 

Lady's Dream, Hood's 348 

Laing, Malcolm 73 

Laing, Samuel 772 

"Lake Poets," what 419 

Lalla Rookh, by Moore 449 

LAMB, CHARLES 235 

on Shelley 91 

Lamia of Keats 80 

Lander, Richard 295 

Lander's, Richard, Travels 155 

Landmarks of History 783 

LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE 612 

Landscape Beauty 412 

Landsdoune Shakspeare 755 

Languages, their different designs 619 

Lardner, Dionysius 567 

La Roche, &tory of 171 

Last Day of Creation, Miller 518 

Last Minstrel, Scott's 176 

Latham, Robert Gordon 772 

Latter-Day Pamphh-ts 651 

Law, Human and Divine 149 

Latorie Tmld 294 

LAYARD, AUSTIN HENRY 739 

Lays from Fairy-Land, Wilson 476 

Lays of Ancient Rome, Macaulay's 5.52 

Lays of the Scotch Cavaliers 760 

Leake, Martin 772 

Learninq and Working 775 

Lecky, W. G. H 772 

Ledyard on Woman's Kindness note, 42 

Lee^ Harriet 567 

Lee, Sophia 156 

Legends and Lyrics 609 

L. E. L , 274 

Lemon, Mark 773 

Lenox, Charlotte 52 

Leonora, by Miss Edgeworth 384 

Leo jr.. Life of 296 

Leslie, John 295 

Lever, Charles James 773 

Lewes, George Henry 773 

Lewis, George' Cornew all 773 

Lewis, John Chetwode 73 

Lewis, Matthew Gregory 73 

Leyden, John 73 

Libel, Law of 108 

Liberty, Blessings of, Macaulay 561 

— Byron's lines on 120 

emblems of, in nature 592 

ode to 18 

Libraries, Lamb on 242 

Library and Garden 750 

Lies of Benevolence 464 

Life and Death, by Miss Procter 610 

Life, by Warren 683 

Chief Object of 329 

Taylor's lines on 114 

Lights and Shadows, by Wilson 472 



792 



INDEX, 



Page 

Like morning when her early breeze 457 

Lines written in a churcliyard, by Knowles 67 

LiNGARD, John 567 

Lions of Niniroud 739 

Lister, T. H 405 

Literary Anecdfotes, by Nichol 777 

Literary Hours, Drake's 258 

Literature of Europe, by Hallara 532 

Little Coin, Much Care 667 

Little Nell, Death of 726 

Little, Thomas, poetical works of. 449 

Living with Others, art of 713 

Livingstone, David 773 

Locke, as a Christian 110 

LocKiiART, John Gibson 567 

Lockhart's remarks on Crabbe 193 

Lodgings for Single Gentlemen 293 

London Labor and London Poor 775 

Longbcard, Lord of London 730 

Lope de Vega 404 

Lord of the Isles, Scott's 176 

Lorenzo de Medici 296 

Lost Opportunities, Trench 689 

Lotos-Eaters 702 

Lounger, Mackenzie's 170 

Lousiad, by Wolcott 69 

Love, Immortality of 318 

Love laughs at Locksmiths 293 

Love, Miss Edgeworth on 385 

Mrs. Tighe on 55 

of Country and Home 485 

the Test of Principle 149 

the Wrongs of 277 

Loved One, the, was not there 745 

Lover, Samuel 773 

Love's Last Words 278 

Lucretius, Sellar on 779 

LuTTRELL, Henry 567 

Lyell, Charles 773 

Lying, Mrs. Opie on 463 

Lyndsay, Chalmers's Life of. 155 

Lyra Innocentium 625 

Lyrical Ballads, by Wordsworth 419 

Lrjrics of the Umrt, Tupper's 710 

Lyttleton. Lord, his Letters 155 

on The Minstrel 29 

LYTTON, EDWARD BULWER 674 

Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer 773 

Macartney, George {Earl) 52 

MACAULAY, THOMAS B 552 

Macbeth and Kichard the Third 162 

McCarthy, Dennis Florence 774 

McCheyne on Mungo Park note, 42 

McCosh, James 774 

McCrie, Thomas 295 

3facdermotts of Ballycloran 782 

MACKAY. CHARLES 730 

MACKENZIE, HENRY '. ITO 

Mackenzie's, Dr. R. Shelton, edition of Wil- 
son's works note, 471 

MACKINTOSH, JAMES 198 

Mackintosh, Sir James, on Rogers.... note, 507 

MACLEAN, L.I5TITIA ELIZABETH 274 

MACLEOD, Norman 774 

McNeil, Hector 73 

Macpherson's Ossian nott, 22 

Madagascar, History of 767 

Madoc, by Southey 315 

Madorofthe Moor 246 

Mseviad of Gifford 156 

Maginn, William 405 

Magna Charta, llallam on 533 

Mahmoud the Sultan 541 

Mahou, Lord, his History of England 780 



Pack 

Maiden's Prayer, by Pollok 146 

Malone, Edward 73 

Maltby, Edward 567 

Man, Croly's lines on 580 

made to be free 337 

3Ian of Feeling, Mackenzie's 170 

Man of the TFwM, Mackenzie's 170 

Man's Dreams and God's Realities 778 

Mansfield Park 72 

Mant, Rev. Richard 405 

Mantell, Gideon 567 

Manuel, of Maturin 156 

Marie Antoinette, her death 652 

Mariner's Hymn, by Mrs. Southey 480 

Mariners of England 343 

Mai-mion, Death of 179 

Marriage, stanzas on 382 

Steele's remarks on note, 142 

Marryatt, Frederick 405 

Marrying a Big Woman 368 

Marsh, Anne 774 

Marsh, Herbert 295 

Marston, Westland 774 

Martin, Theodore 774 

Martineau, Harriet 774 

Martyrs of Antioch, Milman 639 

Martyrs of Science, The 762 

Mary Queen of Scots, Chalmers on 155 

return of 248 

Mary, White's song to 100 

Massey, Gerald 774 

Masson, David 774 

on Keats 80 

Maturin, Charles Robert 156 

Maurice, John F. D 775 

Maxwell, William H 567 

May Day 70 

May Queen -.,.. 702 

May, Thomas Erskine 775 

Mayhew, the Brothers 775 

Mayne, John 295 

Mechanism of the Heavens 780 

Meditative poetry, what note, 545 

Melmoth the Wanderer 156 

Meredith, George 775 

Merivale, Charles 775 

Mermaid, ballad on 73 

3Ierope, a tragedy 755 

Metaphysics, by Croly 579 

Method', advantages of ; 225 

Methodism, Founders of 624 

Mezereon, Mrs. Tighe's lines on 57 

Microscope and Telescope 372 

Middle Ages, history of. 532 

Milesian Chief, of Maturin 166 

Military Glory, cost of 360 

Mill, James 295 

Mill, John Stuart 775 

MILLER, HUGH 514 

Bliller, Rev. Dr., on Wolfe 98 

MILMAN, HENRY HART 639 

MILNES, RICHARD MONCKTON 698 

Milton and Homer, compared 166 

and Scott note, 177 

Arnold on 309 

as a Christian Ill 

Coleridge on 229 

Haley's Life of 1.56 

Macaulay's views of 554 

Sir E. Brydges on 268 

— ^ Wordsworth's sonnet on 430 

Milton's Blindness 101 

jl/ms/reZ, Beattie's 26 

Minstrel of Beattie, extracts 29 

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border 175 



INDEX. 



793 



Page 

Miracles, Whately on 595 

Mirandola, a tragedy, by Procter 6;J6 

Mirror, Mackenzie's 170 

Mirth, by C. Julius Ilare 498 

Miser, the, by PoUok 145 

MrxcHELL, Thomas 405 

MiTFORD, John 567 

Mjtford, Mary Russell 567 

on Mrs. Browning note, 583 

MiTFORD, William 156 

Modern Painters 733 

Modern Sermons, traits of 357 

MOIR, DAVID MACBETH 441 

on Bloomfield note, 105 

on Campbell's merits 336 

on Darwin's poetry 52 

on Heber 139 

on H. K. White 48 

on Pollok 144 

on Shelley 91 

on Tennyson note, 702 

on Wilson... 472 

Moir's opinion of H. K. White note, 100 

remarks on Miss Seward 54 

remarks on Mrs. Tighe 55 

Monarchies of tlhe East 778 

Monarchs Retired from Business 767 

Money Matters, Easy Lessons on 594 

Monk, Lewis's 73 

Monmouth, execution of 560. 

Montagu, Elizabeth 53 

Montagu, Mrs., on Religion note, 215 

Montalbert, of Charlotte Smith 49 

MONTGOMERY, JAMES 483 

on Elliott 398 

Montgomery, Robert 668 

Monument at Oxford, lines on 321 

Moon, C. Smith's lines on the 49 

Moon, G. Washington, Dean^s English 760 

Moore, John 53 

Moore, Sir John, burial of 99 

MOORE, THOMAS.. 448 

Moore's Genius self-painted 451 

Moral and Physical Power 495 

Moral Philosophy, Stewart's j.. 157 

Morality, Dymoud's Essays on 148 

More, H-annah 203 

More, Sir Thomas, execution of 748 

Morgan, Lady 568 

MoRiER, James 405 

Morning, Beattie on 32 

Keble's lines on 626 

Picture, by Wilson 476 

Song, Miss Baillie's 439 

Mornings in Spring, Drake's 258 

Morris, William 775 

Moscow, March to, by Southey 322 

Moses, Books of 229 

Moss, Thomas 53 

Moss in the Desert 42 

Mother and her Child 336 

Mother, H. K. White to his..: 45 

Lamb's lines to his 238 

Mother's Grave 283 

Motherwell, William 295 

MOULTRIE, JOHN 671 

Mountain Bard 246 

Mountain Children 669 

Mourners, real 196 

Moxon's Sonnet to Lamb 2-35 

MuniE, Robert 405 

Muir, Ilenry, by Mrs. Oliphant 777 

MuLocri, Dinah Maria 770 

Mummy, Smith's address to 395 

MUNGO PARK 39 



Paob 

Munsfer Tales 401 

Murchison, Roderick Impey 776 

Murder Glen, by Mrs. Southey 480 

Mure, Col. William 776 

Murphy, Arthur 53 

Music, Hogg's lines on , 250 

Miss Edgeworth's views of 391 

My Diary in India 779 

My married Daughter could you see 281 

My Own Fireside, Watts 064 



Mysteriex of Udolpho 

Mystical Poeti-y, by Moir. 
Mytliology, Northern 



157 

448 

74 

776 



303 



Napier, Sir William 

Napier, editor of Edinburgh Review. 

Napoleon, Dominion of 

Napoleon, Hazlitt's Life of 158 

Scott's Life of 177 

Napoleon and Wellington 645 

Napoleon Buonaparte, Doubts about 595 

Nation's Decline, cause of 406 

Nations' responsibility 140 

Nations ruled by God 210 

Native Genius, Pictures of 400 

Natural.History of Enthusiasm 622 

Natural History of Man 406 

Nature, Charms of, Beattie 33 

Love of, Beattie 27 

Nature's Gentleman 744 

Nell, Little, death of 726 

Nelson, Death of, by Southey 325 

Nemesis of Faith 746 

Never Too Late to Mend 778 

Newcome, Lady Clara 604 

Newcomes, T/^e, by Thackeray 603 

New Cratylus, The 767 

Newman, Francis William 776 

Newman, John Henry 776 

Newton, John 53 

Newton, as a Christian 110 

New-Year's Eve 703 

NiCHOL, J. P 777 

Nichols, John 156 

Nichols, John Bowyer 777 

Nicoll,.Robert 295 

Nieuwentyt's Natural Theology note, 36 

Niger, Discovery of 40 

Night, H. Coleridge on 376 

Montgomery on 486 

Night at Sea, by Wilson 477 

Nightingale, Florence 777 

Nightingale, C. Smith on the 50 

— Keats on the 81 



Nile, Sources of the, by Speke 780 

Nimroud, Layard's discoveries 739 

No Name, Collins's 765 

Noble Life, Miss Muloch's 776 

Noctes Ambrosianie, by Wilson 471 

Noel, Baptist Wriothesley 777 

Northern Mythology 74 

NORTON, CAROLINE E. S 694 

Novel-Reading, effects of. 230 

Now and Afterwards 776 

Now and Then 682 

Oaths, their frequency deprecated 240 

Observer, Cumberland's „ 58 

Ocean, apostrophe to the 118 

traces of, by Miller 516 

Odyssey, Worsley's translation 783 

"Oh, it is hard to work for God" 767 

Old Age, lu-eparation for 25 

Old Arm-Chair 742 

Old Bachelor, by Aird , 759 



67 



794 



INDEX. 



Page 

Old Blind Margaret 236 

Old Man's Comforts 321 

Old Red Sandstone, Miller 515 

Oliphant, Margaret 777 

Oliver Twist 719 

Olney Hymns 53 

Olympic Festival 679 

"One by One," by Miss Procter 610 

Ophelia— Hamlet, by Coleridge 378 

OPIE, AMELIA 463 

Opium-Eater, Confessions of an 545 

Oracles of God, Irving on 231 

Ordeal of Richard Peveril 775 

Orley Farm, by Trollope 782 

Osslan, genuineness of. note, 22 

Ossian's Poems, Laing on 73 

Ostend, Bowles's sonnet at 433 

Owen, Meredith. See Lytton. 

Owen, Richard 777 

Paganism and Christianity compared 405 

Palestine, of Heber 139 

PALEY, WILLIAM 34 

Palgrave, Francis Turner 778 

Palgrave, Sir Francis 778 

Palgrave, William Gifford 778 

Palmerston, Lord, Bowring on 762 

Pantisocracy of Coleridge, &c 216 

Papal Church, influence of. 564 

Paracelsus, death-bed of. 716 

Paradise and the Peri 451 

Paradise Lost, ending of. 617 

Pardoe, Julia 778 

Parental Ode to an Infant Son 344 

Parish Workhouse 194 

Parody on " The Good Time Coming," note, 730 

Parr, Samuel 156 

Parry, Edward 568 

Passions, the, by Sydney Smith 366 

Paternal Affection 184 

Path of the Just, Trench 687 

Patmore, Coventry 778 

Patriot's duty to his country 167 

Patronaffe, by Miss Edgeworth 384 

Paul Cliford 674 

Paul Dombey, death of 720 

Paul, St., Hannah More on 204 

pauper's Funeral 636 

Peeps at St. James 69 

Pelham 674 

Pelican Island, by Montgomery 484 

Pendennis, by Thackeray 603 

Penn, William, Dixon's Life of 766 

Pentecostal Gift 516 

Percy, Thomas _ 74 

Pericles and Aspasia, by Landor 612 

Perils of Men and Women 246 

Perseverance, advantage of 209 

Pet Lamb, sale of the 668 

Peter Bell, bv Wordsworth 420 

Peter Pindar 68 

Peter Simple, by Marrj'att 405 

Petrel, the Stormy '6-38 

Phases of Faith, by Nevraian 776 

Philip, Adventtires of. 603 

Philip van Artevelde 781 

Phillips, Samuel 568 

Philosopher's Scales 112 

Philosophical Essays, Stewart's 157 

Phrenology, by Combe 566 

Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale 405 

Physical and Moral Power 495 

PicKEN, Andrew 295 

Pickwick and the Cab-driver 722 

Pilgrims and the Peas 71 



Pass 

Pilgrims of the Rhine 674 

Pinkerton, John 156 

Pins, remarks of H. Coleridge 377 

Piozzi, Hester Lynch 157 

Pippa Passes, by R. Browning 715 

Plato, Henry Rogers on 680 

Plato and Socrates, by Grote 769 

Platonic Dialogues, by Whewell 783 

Plato's Dialogues, by Sewell 779 

Playfair, John 74 

Plea for the Queen's English 760 

Pleasures of Memory 506 

Pleasures, Helps on 713 

the Sensible 297 

Poet, the, by L. E. L 278 

Poetry as affected by Christianity 470 

progress of 59 

superior to painting and sculpture 490 

what, by Croly 578 

Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture 618 

Poets, Mrs. Browning's portraits of 584 

Poet's Fame perishable 410 

Mission, Leigh Hunt on 543 

Poets of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth 

Centuries 753 

Poets of the Nineteenth Century ;.... 783 

Political Economy, by Croly 678 

Political Economy, Ricardo's 157 

Politics and Christianity 658 

POLLOK, ROBERT 144 

Pompeii, by Bulwer Lytton 677 

Pontefract, its etymology 698 

Poor Andrew 398 

Poor, Complaints of, by South ey 319 

Cradle Song of the 611 

hardships of. 195 

sympathy with, Mrs. Gaskell 768 

the, intercourse with 307 

the toils of the, Howitt 670 

the virtues of the 729 

Poor Man's Funeral 66 

Pope, Conspiracy of the 364 

Pope and Shelley 753 

and Wordsworth 754 

edition of, by Bowles note, 432 

Warton's estimate of 20 

Popish Ritual 368 

Popular Delusimis 730 

PoRSON, Richard 53 

Porter, Anna Maria 295 

Porter, Jane 568 

Porter, Sir Robert Ker 406 

Porteus, Beilby 54 

Portia, by Mrs. Jameson 570 

Portrait, a, by Wordsworth 425 

Portugal, Miss Pardoe on 778 

Potted Sprats, a tale of 465 

Practical P(>(!v, of H. More 204 

PRAED, WINTHROP MACKWORTH 283 

Prayer, by H. Coleridge 377 

lines on, by Trench 688 

Mrs. Hemanson 255 

Paley on 38 

purposes of, by Croly 579 

Preachers, the three 732 

Present Moment ours 114 

Times, spirit of 649 

Price, Sir TJvedale 157 

Prichard, James Cowles 406 

Pride and Prejudice 72 

Priestcraft, Hewitt's history of , 657 

Primrose, to an early 47 

Princess, The, by Tennyson 702 

Principles of Psychology, by Spencer 780 

Pringle, Thomas 295 



INDEX. 



795 



Paob 

Prison amusements of Leigh Hunt 538 

Prison World of Europe 766 

Private Judgment, duty of 603 

PROCTER, ADELAIDE ANNE 609 

PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER 636 

Profession versus Practice 617 

Progressiveness of the Race 201 

Prometheus Bound, Mrs. Browning's 582 

Prffinetheus Unbound 90 

Prophecies, Hurd on 52 

Prophetical Office of the Church 776 

Prophets, the two, by Bonar 693 

Prose and Verse, characteristics of. 491 

Prout, William, Bridgewater Treatise, no^e, 565 

Proverbial Philosophy 710 

Proverbs, beauty and force of 691 

Lessons in, Trench 687 

Providence of God 42 

Prudence, Miss Edgeworth on 389 

Psyche, of Mrs. Tighe 55 

Punch, its editor 773 

Punishments, Bentham on 292 

Puritans, the, Macaulay on 5-56 

Parley, Diversions of 75 

PuSET, Edward B 778 

Puseyites, Sydney Smith on 368 

Quadroon, T^e, by Reid 779 

Quakers, their faith and works 205 

their love of truth 240 

Quarrels of Authors 404 

Queen Mab 90 

Queen Mother, by Swinburne 781 

Queens of England, by Strickland 781 

Queen's Wake, by Hogg 246 

Races of men, the two 242 

Radcliffe, An\ 157 

Railway Mania in England 647 

Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth 186 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, Brydges on 265 

Rambler, Knox on The 87 

Bavenshoe, by Kingsley 772 

Rawlinson, Henry Creswicke 778 

Rawlinson, Rev. George 778 

Razor-Seller, the 70 

Reach, Agnes Bethune 568 

Reade, Charles 778 

Reade, John Edmund 779 

Rebecca's Hymn 183 

Rebellion in America, by Noel 777 

Rebellion, the crime of ; 201 

Records of Creation, by Sumner 781 

Recreations of Christopher North 471 

Reed, Professor, edition of Lord Mahon.... 780 
Reed, Prof. Henry, on Wordsworth... Tiote, 428 

Rees, Dr. Abraham 157 

Reform, Progress of. 367 

Refugee in America 782 

Reid, Capt. Matne 779 

Rejected Addresses 287 

Religion, its supports 215 

Religion of the Imagination 622 

ReUques of English Poetry 74 

Repining, Thanksgiving 688 

Retirement, reflections on leaving 223 

Retribution, Law of, Sharp's 75 

Retrospection, Cumberland's 58 

Revolt of Islam 90 

Reynolds, Frederick 406 

Rhine, Bowles's sonnet on 433 

Rhoda's Lessons, by Miss Muloch _ 776 

Rhymes for the Nursery 112 

RiOARDO, David 157 

Rich, Claudius James 157 



Paok 

Rich and Poor, Milnes on 700 

Richelieu, by Bulwer 674 

Rieml, by Lytton 674 

RiJU Rangers 779 

Rimini, Story of. Hunt's 539 

River, the, Aird's lines on 759 

River of Life 341 

Rivers. Names of, by J. Smith 292 

ROBERTSON. FREDERICK W 458 

on Shelley 90 

on Wordsworth note, 422 

Robin Gray, Auld, ballad of. 137 

Roderic, the Last of the Goths 315 

ROGERS, HENRY 680 

Rogers, Samuel 506 

Sydney Smith on 368 

Rokeby, Scott's 176 

Roman Poets of the Republic 779 

Roman Republic, Ferguson's 73 

Romance of the Forest 157 

Romance of the Hirem 778 

Rome, Arnold's History of. 301 

Romilly, Miss, Bowles's sonnet to 434 

Romish Church, influence of. 564 

Rosamond Gray 2.36 

RoscoE, William 296 

Rose, William Stewart 406 

Rosse's, Lord, Telescope 549 

Round Table, Ilazlitt's 158 

Roundabout Papers 603 

Rowley's Poems, Bryant on 51 

Rowton's remarks on Mary Howitt 667 

Rubor Rust 402 

RuGG, Rev. Thomas 778 

Rural Tales, of Bloomfield 103 

RUSKIN, JOHN 733 

Russell, William Howard 779 

Russian Poets, Specimens of. , 762 

Ryland, J. E., on John Foster 330 

Sabbath, Grahame's 63 

Sabbath Bells 238 

Sabbath Morning 64 

Sabbath, Praed"s lines on 286 

thoughts on, Whately 594 

Safety Lamp, Davy's 152 

Saint Giles and Saint James 524 

Saint's Tragedy 752 

Sala, George Augustus 779 

Sally Simpkius's Lament 351 

Salmonia 152 

Salt of the Earth, the 136 

Samor, Lord of the Bright City 639 

Sanctified Aflaiictions 480 

Sartor Resartus 650 

Saturday, by Elliott 401 

Saturday Evening, by Taylor 622 

Saturn and Thea 83 

Sayers, Frank 74 

Scandinavia, Howitt's history of. 657 

Scenes of Infancy. Leyden's 73 

Schiller, Carlyle's Life of 650 

Scholar, the, by Southey 320 

School for Scandal 75 

Schoolmaster and Conqueror 635 

Schoolmaster, encouragements of 306 

' liveliness essential for 309 

Science and Religion, connection of 619 

and Scripture, W'hatelj' 598 

' not the greatest 753 

Scotland, her Songs 310 

Pinkerton's historj' of 157 

the nurse of poetry 182 

Scotland's Skaith 73 

SCOTT, WALTER 175 



796 



INDEX. 



Page 

Scott on Byron note, 125 

Scottish Lassie, here's to thee 673 

Scott's opinion of Miss Austen 72 

Scripture and Science, Whately on 598 

Scripture, best interpreter of 689 

Scripture Teaching, De Quincey on 550 

Sculpture, Painting, and Poetry 618 

Sea, Procter's lines on 637 

Self-Control ".... 73 

Seif-Loathing, by Trench 688 

Sellar, W. G 779 

Senate, British, Eloquence of. 158 

Sennacherib, Byron on 123 

Sense and Sensibility 72 

Sensibility, by H. More 204 

Sensible Pleasures, regulations of. 297 

Sensitive Plant 97 

Sesame and Lilies 734 

Seven Lamps of Architecture 733 

Seven Sons of Mammon 779 

Seven Sto7ies of Venice 733 

Seward, Anna 54 

Sewell, Elizabeth Missing 779 

Sewell, Rev. William 779 

Sexes, the, by Mrs. Crowe 766 

' the, Procter on 639 

Shadows of the Clouds 746 

Shakspeare, Concordance to 764 

Shakspeare and ^schylus 61 

cannot be acted 239 

— — Dyce's edition 767 

Hazlitt on 158 

.Jeffrey on 414 

Mrs. Montagu on 53 

Sharp, Granville 74 

Sharp's Monumental Inscription note, 75 

Shaving of Shagport 775 

Shelley, Mart 568 

Shelley, Mrs., on the " Cloud," Ac note, 93 

SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE 89 

Shepherd, Rev. W 297 

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley 75 

Sheridan's Life, by Moore 450 

Sherlock on Life 117 

She walks in Beauty 127 

She was a Phantom of Delight 425 

Shipwreck, Byron's description of. 126 

Shower-Bath, lines on 292 

Sickness, Prayer in 637 

sonnet to 45 

Siller Gun, The 295 

Siluria 776 

Sins of Government, Mrs. Barbauld on 130 

Sky. Ruskin on the 737 

Skylark, Bloorafield on the 104 

— '■ Hogg's 249 

Shelley's 95 

Wordsworth's ode to a 424 

Slaveholders, God's vengeance against 75 

Slavery, Dymond on 150 

Wesley's opinion of note, 213 

worse than murder 227 

Slavery, American, Goldvrin Smith on 779 

Brougham's opinion of 632 

Coleridge's opinion of 227 

Slave-trade, Wilberforce on the 213 

Sleep, Mrs. Browning on 586 

Small House at Allington 782 

Small things not to be despised 497 

Smiles, Samuel 779 

SMITH, ALEXANDER ,. 749 

Smith, Goldwin 779 

SMITH, HORACE 391 

SMITH, JAMES 287 

Smith, Richard Henry 780 



SMITH, SYDNEY ^354 

on Lord Macaulay , 553 

SMITH, ^V ILLl AlSl, geologist 296 

Smith, William 780 

Social Statics, by Spencer 780 

Society, advancement of 337 

Socrates, character of, by Mitchell 405 

Soldier, an old, lines on 439 

Soldier's Dream 341 

Solitude, Byron's lines on 122 

Somerset Slave Case 74 

SOMERVILLE, MhS. MaRT 780 

Song of the Church , 346 

Songs of Israel, of Knox 156 

Sonnet not to be scorned 430 

Soporific Sermon 362 

Sordello, by R. Browning 715 

Sorrow, the Three Ladies of. 547 

SooTHEBY, William 296 

SOUTHEY, CAROLINE ANNE 479 

SOUTHEY, ROBERT 315 

on Coleridge and Wordsworth 421 

Southey's lines on Heber 138 

Spain, Annals and Artists of. 780 

'Spectator, Knox on The 87 

Speke, John Hanninq 780 

Spencer, Herbert 780 

Spencer, William Robert 296 

Spenser, Edmund, remarks- on 616 

Spider, Southey's lines to 318 

Spiritual superior to.the Material 585 

Spiritual Worship, by Barton 380 

Spring Hymn, by Moir 446 

Spring, meditations on, Wilson 477 

return of 91 

Stage-Coach Travelling 363 

Stanhope, Philip Henry 780 

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn 780 

Life of Arnold note, 306 

Stanton's Reformers of Great Britain 630 

Star of Atteghei 7^3 

St. Asaph, Dean of, his trial 106 

Stewart, Dugald 157 

on Robert Hall 165 

Still Waters Run Deep 781 

Stirling, John 406 

Stirling, William 780 

Stormy Petrel, Procter on 6.38 

Stranger's Heart 254 

Strayed Reveller, Kingsley's 755 

Strickland, Agnes 781 

Strive and Thrive 667 

Study, Honest, by Carlyle 65S 

Style, qualities necessary for a good 224 

simplicity of, by Knox , 88 

Substitution, sonnet, by Mrs. Browning... 588 

Success alone seen 276 

Summer, Bowles's sonnet to •... 434 

Sabbath Walk 65 

Sumner, John Bird 781 

Sunday Sonnet, Mrs. Hemans 257 

Superiority of the Spiritual 585 

"Surplus Population" 525 

Suspira de Profundis 545 

Sutherland, Duchess of, lines to 695 

Swain, Charles 781 

Swan of Lichfield 54 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles 781 

Sympathy of Christ, Chalmers on 374 

Sympathy, Talfourd on 470 

Syntax, Dr., Tour of 155 

Tales frmn SJiakspeare 237 

TALFOURD, THOMAS NOON 467 

on Lamb note, 236 



INDEX. 



1^1 



Talker, a great, by S. Smith 368 

Tamerton Church Toiver 778 

Tannahill, Robert 75 

Taste, Alison on 271 

cultivation of 23 

delicacy and con-ectness of 24 

Taller, Knox on the 86 

Taylor family, the note, 621 

Taylor, Henry 781 

TAYLOR, ISAAC 621 

Taylor, Jane Ill 

Taylor, Tom 781 

Taylor, William 296 

Teacher, qualities essential to 221 

Teaching, the moral dignity of. note, 306 

Telescope and Microscope 372 

Telescope and Microscope, by Dick 520 

Telescope of Lord Rosse 549 

Tempest, Davy's lines on 154 

Ten Thousand a Tear 682 

Ten Tribes found , 328 

Tennant, William 406 

Tennent, James Emerson 781 

TENNYSON, ALFRED 701 

Tennyson, Frederick 781 

Terms, correct use of 223 

Testimmiy of the Rocks, Miller's 515 

THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE 603 

Thanksgiving — Repining 688 

Theaand Saturn 83 

Theatre of the Greeks 767 

Theatre, the, by G. C. (Smith) 290 

Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum 265 

The bird let loose 457 

The finest poetry, what 447,. 

The Light of other Days 45(> 

The world is too much with us 430 

There's not a leaf within the bower 464 

Thermopylae, Byron's lines on 126 

Things worse than war 459 

Thirlwall, Connop 781 

This world is all a fleeting show. 457 

Thomas, Rev. Alfred C note, 690 

Thompson, Mrs., on Mrs. Montagu 53 

TnoRNBURT, George Walter 781 

Those evening bells 455 

Thou art, God, the life and light 458 

Thrale, Mrs 157 

Three Ladies of Sorrow 547 

Throne of God, Dr. Dick upon 523 

" Thy way, not mine, Lord" 693 

TIGHE, MARY 55 

Tim Linkinwater's Window 724 

Time arresting Pleasure 277 

Bowles's sonnet to 433 

Petition to 637 

Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth on 422 

'Tis the last rose of summer 455 

Tobacco, Lamb's opinion of. note, 237 

Tobacco-chewing, Dickens on 719 

Toilet, death at the 683 

Tom Brown's School- Days 771 

Tonna, Charlotte Elizabeth 406 

TooKE, John Horne 75 

his trial 107 

Too Late J stayed 296 

Tower of London, Macaulay on 560 

Town Lyrics, by Mackay 730 

Travel, Foreign, Helps on 714 

TRENCH, RICHARD C 687 

Trials of Margaret Lindsay 472 

Tribulation, its meaning 689 

Trojan War, Bryant on 51 

Trollope, Anthony 782 

Trollope, Frances A 782 



Trollope, Thomas Adolphus 782 

Troubadour, of Maclean 275 

Truth, Beattie's Essay on 26 

Loyalty to, by Thackeray 608 

Ruskin on 735 

will prevail 226 

TOLLOCH, Rev. John 782 

TUPPER, MARTIN F 709 

Turner, Charles 782 

Turner, Sharon 406 

Turning-Point of Life 514 

Twopenny Post-Bag 449 

Tyre, Venice, and England 734 

Tytler, Patrick Fraser 406 

Umbrella loaned by Caudlo ; 529 

Undertones, by Buchanan 763 

Undying One, The, by Mrs. Norton 694 

Unity of Mankind, Prince Albert on 202 

"Unremitting Kindness," by Jerrold 525 

Upas in Marybone Lane , 291 

Utilitarianism, Mill's 775 

Utility as a standard of right note, 292 

recognized by the poet 543 



Valentine McClutcJiy 763 

Vathek 402 

Vaughan, Rev. Robert 782 

Venice, Tyre, and England 734 

Verses for Holy Seasons 760 

Very Hard Cash 778 

Village Minstrel, by Clare 764 

Village Patriarch 398 

VilJiers, George, Pope's lines on 754 

Vindiciae Gallicse 193 

Virginius, by Knowles 590 

Virtue, Hogg's lines on 249 

Vision, a, by H. Coleridge 376 

Voices from the Crowd 730 

Voices from the Mountain 730 

Wainewright's defence of Paley. note, 36 

Wakefield, .Gilbert 54 

Wales, Mrs. Hall's book on 770 

Walpole, Memoirs of 155 

Wanderer of JVor^vay 76 

Wanderer of Switzerland 484 

War antagonistic to Christianity 148 

barbarities of, by Chalmers 373 

curse of, by Sydney Smith 361 

not the worst thing 459 



Warburton, Eliot 568 

Ward, R. Plumer 406 

Wardlaw, Ralph 568 

WARREN, SAMUEL 682 

Warrior, the slain, Tennyson's 705 

WARTON, JOSEPH 17 

Watcher on the Tower 731 

"Watchman! tell us of the night" 762 

Waterloo, mistaken battle of. note, 124 

Watson, Richard 75 

WATTS, ALARIC ALEXANDER 662 

Waverlcy, Scott's 176 

"We are Seven" 426 

Weaver, Mrs. Norton's sonnet to a 696 

Weavers. Hannah More's 206 

Webster, Daniel, S. Smith on 368 

Wedding, a Hebrew, Milman 642 

Weep not for her 445 

Wellington, Gleig's Life of 769 

and Napoleon 645 

Wesley, John, Taylor on 623 

Wesley's Letter to Wilberforce note, 213 

Wesley and Methodisryj, , 623 

West Indian, Cumberland's 53 



67* 



798 



INDEX. 



Page 

West Indies, by Montgomery 484 

West Indies, Gnrney on 404 

Westminster Bridge, lines on 292 

Westward Ho! 752 

Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea 314 

What every man can do 368 

WHATELY, RICHARD 594 

When Israel, of the Lord beloved 183 

Where will you leave your glory? 333 

Whewell, Rev. William 782 

Whims and Oddities 344 

Whipple on Keats 80 

WHITE, HENRY KIRKE 43 

Byron's lines to 128 

Whittier on Byron note, 117 

Why don't the men propose? 282 

Widow's Mite 276 

Widow''s Tale, by Mrs. Southey 479 

Wife, Heber's lines to his 142 

sonnet to, by Barton 383 

verses to 279 

WILBERFORCE, WILLIAM 212 

Mrs. Barbauld's epistle to 130 

Wild Flowers, of Bloomfield 103 

William Tell, by Knowles 590 

Williams, Helen Maria 157 

WiLLMOTT, Rev. Robert Aris 783 

Willmott's remarks on Crabbe 193 

Willy Reilly,hy Carleton 763 

Wilson, George 568 

WILSON, JOHN 471 

Winchester College note, 431 

Windlass, a Charade 284 

Windsor Castle, by Ainsworth 759 

Winter Evening Tales, by Hogg 246 

Winter in London 531 

Winter Night, Shelley on a 92 

Winter Nights, Drake's 258 

Wisdom 206 

Landor on 618 

WISEMAN, NICHOLAS 619 

Wish, a, by Samuel Rogers 513 

Witch of Atlas 90 

Wives and Daughters 768 

WOLCOTT, JOHN 68 

WOLFE, CHARLES 98 

Woman, changefulness of 79 

her duties and joys 583 



Pag« 

Woman, her kindness to Park 40 

her kindness to Ledyard note, 42 

her tenderness 181 

Woman in White 765 

Women, Thackeray on 605 

Women and Children, by Tennyson 781 

Women of England 767 

Wonders of Science 775 

Word, power of a 689 

Words, Study of, by Trench 687 

Words, their permanence 493 

their power, by Miss Procter 612 

versus Works 752 

WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM 418 

Work and Wages 667 

Work, Carlyle's remarks on 654 

our Duty 460 

Workhouse, Parish 194 

Working-man, his true happiness 517 

World before the Flood 484 

World, insignificance of 370 

Knox on the 87 

the, as evincing benevolence 36 

the, Eliza Cook on 743 

World's Age, Kingsley on 754 

Worship Public or Social 130 

WoRSLET, Philip Stanhope 783 

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte 501 

Wycliffe's Life, by Vaughan 782 

Wye, river Wordsworth on 422 

Wyoming, Gertrude of. 339 

JTanthian Marbles, by Fellows 767 

Yates, Edmund Hodgson 783 

Yeast, a Problem 752 

YONGE, Charlotte Mat 783 

Yoking Gray-Head 481 

Youth and Ago 222 

and Manhood, by Milnes 698 

aspirations of 487 

eager for knowledge 634 

what it should learn 495 

Youth at School, Taylor's note. 111 

Zeluco, a novel 63 

Zong, the slave-ship note, 74 



THE END. 



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